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UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 




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ASHORE FOK REPAIRS ST. IVES. 



UNTRODDEN 
ENGLISH WAYS 

BY 

HENRY C. SHELLEY 

AUTHOR OF "LITERARY BY-PATHS IN OLD ENGLAND," 
"JOHN HARVARD AND HIS TIMES," ETC. 



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With Four Full-Page Plates in Colour, 

and Illustrations from Drawings by H. C. Colby 

and from Photographs by the Author 



BOSTON 
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1908 






OCT 9 lyua 

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iDij'kJ*!. CL^ aXc, 01., 



Copyright, 1908, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 



COLOXIAL PRESS 

Electrotijped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 

Boston, U. S. A. 



TO 

WILLIAM E. HASKELL 

IN SINCERE APPRECIATION OP 
CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP 



PREFACE 

In selecting a collective title for the following 
chapters it has been found impossible, at any 
rate by the author, to search out a collocation of 
words more comprehensive than the one which 
stands on the title page. That it is open to an 
objection is frankly admitted. By no license 
can Poets' Corner be described as " untrodden," 
and that adjective may also be inappropriate in 
one or two additional instances. 

Nevertheless, and apart altogether from the 
plea which might be based on the fact that few 
books conform faithfully to their titles, it may be 
claimed that " Untrodden English Ways " accu- 
rately describes nine-tenths of the volume's con- 
tents. The best test of this will be for the reader 
to consider what measure of acquaintance he has 
with the various places described. He will 
know more of England than the average English- 
man, and greatly exceed the knowledge of the 



PREFACE 

most zealous tourist, if he can claim to have 
trodden many of these ways. 

When a country has so ancient a history as 
England, it is inevitable that even its most neg- 
lected corners shall enshrine much of human 
interest. To the author those byways have al- 
ways possessed a subtler charm than the high- 
ways of common knowledge. Hence the seeking 
out of the unusual attempted in these pages, 
a departure from convention which may, it is 
hoped, be justified by the results. 

Perhaps it will be of service to the tourist to 
point out that the chapters are arranged in a 
geographical order, and that by starting at St. 
Ives in Cornwall it will be possible to follow 
these untrodden ways in easy sequence. 

H. c. s. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. At the Edge of the Land , . . . . 3 

II. Fair Devon . 21 

III. Bath and its Baths 39 

IV. John Keble's Hursley 57 

V. Oatlands Park 77 

VI. Poets' Corner 91 

VII. Royalty in Wax Ill 

VIII. BuNHiLL Fields 127 

IX. Fred Walker's Cookham 147 

X. By Famous Graves 167 

XI. Concerning Dick Turpin 181 

XII. Beaconsfield 195 

XIII. The Norfolk Broads 215 

XIV. In the Lincolnshire Fens 229 

XV. Witney and Minster Lovel 249 

XVI. Three Memorable Pulpits 267 

XVII. Five Famous Schools 283 

XVIII. Water Worship in Derbyshire .... 297 

XIX. Warkworth and Its Hermitage .... 309 

XX. A Highland Noble's Home 327 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



iFuIl pase |)Iatc0 in Colour 

Ives . . , . 



Ashore for Repairs, St 

Bath, from the Avon .... 

CooKHAM Lock 

Cookham, on the Thames . 
Minster Lovel, from the Meadows 

iFnll-pafft IJlatcfii 

A St. Ives Studio 

An Exhibition at St. Ives 

St. Ives' Harbour 

Gurnard's Head . 

On a Devon Stream . 

A Farmhouse in Devon 

CocKiNGTON Village . 

Site of Hypocaust Bath 

The Roman Baths 

Graves op John Keble and his Wife 

Hursley Church 

Cedars of Lebanon, Oatlands 

Old Portion op Oatlaniis Mansion 

The Dogs' Cemetery, Oatlands 

Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey 

Queen Elizabeth . 

Queen Mary . 

Lord Nelson . 

Charles II. 

The Cromwell Vault 

John Bunyan's Tomb 

Cookham Church . 

Cliveden Woods 

xiii 



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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The GivAVE of Laurence Sterne . 
Where Thackeray Sleeps 

Hogarth's Grave 

The Rossetti Grave 

Turpin's Ring, Hempstead 
Dick Turpin's Birthplace 

Turpin's Oak 

The Grave of Waller . . . . 

Horning Ferry 

On the Bure 

Harvest in the Broads . . . . 
Home from the Broads . . , . 
Wind and Water Mills of the Fens . 

Crowland Abbey 

Gretford Hall 

West Deeping Church and Font . 

Minster Lovel 

Lord Lovel's Tomb 

Cardinal Manning's Pulpit 
Dr. Arnold's Pulpit in Rugby Chapel 
Shakespeare's School . . . . 

Sir Isaac Netvton's School 

The Manor Well 

The Town Well 

Gatehouse on Warkworth Bridge 
Warkvi'orth Castle . . . . 

Warkworth Hermitage . . . . 

On the Coquet 

The Saloon, Inverary . . . . 
The Duchess' Boudoir, Inverary . 
Frew's Bridge, Inverary . . . . 
Inverary Castle 



Page 



170 

170 

170, 

170 

188-' 

190, 

190 

204 - 

218^ 

222^ 

222 

226 

230^ 

236 

236 

244- 

262..' 

262 

272 " 

272 

286- 

286 

306-- 

306 

310 ' 

310 

320- 

320 

332 . 

332 

340 

340 



SfUttBtratiotiE! tn tbc Cejct 

Catfield Staithe Vignette on TiUe 

An Artist Pupil Page 7 

Castle - An - Dinas " 16 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



A Devon Lane 

Entrance to Kent's Cavern .... 

A Corner of the Baths 

Bath Abbey 

HuRSLEY Vicarage 

Prince Henry of Oatlands .... 

The Duchess of York 

The Duke of Buckingham .... 

Daniel Defoe's Grave 

The Grave of Isaac Watts .... 
Fred Walker's Home at Cookham 

Fred Walker's Grave 

The Walker Medallion in Cookham Church 

George Eliot's Grave 

Burke's Memorial in Beaconsfield Church 

At Wroxham 

A Norfolk Dyke ....... 

On the Welland 

The Triangular Bridge, Crowland 
Witney Blanket Hall ..... 
The Butter Cross at Witney .... 

John Cotton's Pulpit 

Facade of Keats' Schoolhouse 

Tissington Village 

Warkworth Bridge . . . . . . 

The Armory, Inverary Castle 



Page 



27 

31 

41 

51 

70 

79 

86 

121 

136 

142 

149 

159 

161 

173 

206 

217 

220 

237 

243 

253 

257 

268 

291 

302 

321 

331 



I 

AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH 
WAYS 

AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 

LESLIE STEPHEN always had one irre- 
sistible argument to use when he wanted 
the companionship of James Russell 
Lowell at St. Ives. *' I argued," Stephen has 
recorded, " that one main charm of the Land's 
End to him was that nothing intervened between 
it and Massachusetts." 

Perhaps that did not exhaust the attractiveness 
of the district for Lowell. *' Every year," 
Stephen wrote, " we paid a visit to Land's End. 
He confirmed my rooted belief that it is one of 
the most beautiful headlands in the world. He 
admitted that our Cornish sea can be as blue as 
the Mediterranean, to which in other respects 
it has an obvious superiority." But it was not 
with the Mediterranean that Lowell's thoughts 
were most busy ; *' Cornwall," he said, ** has 

3 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

St. Erth's in it, where sometimes one has beatific 
visions. I find a strange pleasure in that name 
too, so homely and motherly, as if some pope 
had suddenly bethought himself to canonize 
this dear old Earth of ours so good to us all, 
and give the body as well as the soul a share in 
those blessed things." 

In that reflection may be found the clue to 
the fascination which the westmost land of 
Cornwall has possessed for others than Lowell 
and Stephen. Hither, to the same ideal head- 
quarters of St. Ives, years earlier than the visits 
of those two friends, once came F. Max Muller 
for an autumnal vacation. The great scholar 
soon found his ears and eyes assailed by names 
of fields and lanes and stones and houses and 
villages such as held rich treasures for his philo- 
logical imagination. " I wish I could stay here 
longer," he wrote, " it is a delightful neighbour- 
hood and full of interest. Now and then one 
jeels very near the old world. How careless 
people are about Celtic antiquities; while they 
send off men-of-war to fetch home the lions and 
bulls of Nineveh, farmers are allowed to pull 
down cromlechs and caves, and use the stones 
for pig-styes." Still later in his visit Max Miiller 
confessed that he would " gladly give up Oxford 

4 



AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 

and settle here, in a cottage by the sea-shore, 
and finish my edition and translation of the 
Veda. . . . The air here is so invigorating and 
life so easy, natural, and uninterrupted by 
society, that one feels up to any amount of 
work." 

One jeels very near the old world. Such is 
the secret of the spell cast over all alike at the 
edge of the land. That nearness to the old 
world is largely owing to the fact that St. Ives 
and its vicinity have been brought into touch 
with the new world only within the last genera- 
tion. A century and a half ago William Borlase, 
the Gilbert White of Cornwall, noted that the 
situation of the county, '* secluded in a manner 
from the rest of Britain, renders it, like all 
distant objects, less distinctly seen by the polite, 
learned, and busy world." What was true of 
Cornwall as a whole a hundred and fifty years 
ago remained true of St. Ives and its hinterland 
within recent memory. 

Even yet the " polite, learned, and busy 
world " does not concern itself overmuch with 
this remote district. The iron road from Lon- 
don bifurcates at that St. Erth of Lowell's 
" beatific visions," sending out one arm to Pen- 
zance on the south coast and another to St. 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Ives on the north, and in each place its ghttering 
track comes to a definite end. Westward of 
those termini Kes a compact httle country where 
one still " feels very near the old world," where 
the spirit if not the letter of the Latin poet's 
ancient lines yet holds good: 

Of Titan's monstrous race, 
Only some few disturb'd that happy place; 
Raw hides they wore for clothes, their drink was blood, 
Rocks were their dining-rooms, their prey their food. 
Their cups some hollow trunk, their bed a groove. 
Murder their sport, and violence their love. 

Fortunate, indeed, were Max Miiller, and 
Lowell, and Stephen in their choice of St. Ives 
for their headquarters at the edge of the land. 
They might have gone to Penzance instead, 
Penzance which is new without brightness and 
old without quaintness. Such buildings as are 
new at St. Ives have the saving grace of their 
quality ; such as are old — by far the majority — 
wear their years with archaic charm. 

Perhaps that difference explains why the 
** learned " world finds itself most at home in 
St. Ives. Even the most inobservant visitor 
cannot remain many days in this quaint fishing- 
town without discovering that he is surrounded 

6 



AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 



by authors and artists. Not a few of the most 
notable writers of the younger generation have 
made their home here, and novel after novel 
by Charles Marriott, and Harold Begbic, and 
Guy Thorne be- 
trays the influence 
of the environment 
in which it was 
penned. 

Still larger and 
more potent in its 
influence is the 
artist colony of St. 
Ives. The paint- 
ers who have loca- 
ted their studios 
here number more 
than half a hun- 
dred, but their pu- 
pils — many of 
whom come from 

the United States and Canada — swell the 
colony to several times that total. Various 
circumstances account for the existence of 
this large band of painters. Apart from the 
prime factor that the vicinity provides unlimited 
wealth of pictorial material in simple landscape 

7 




AN ARTIST PUPIL 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

or the ever-changing aspect of the sea, the decay 
of the fishing industry has forced many a sail- 
loft out of its legitimate business and opened 
the way for its transformation into an artist's 
studio at a moderate cost. Consequently almost 
every alternate rambling shed looking out on 
the bay of St. Ives no longer hoards the sails 
and spars of fishing craft, but is given over 
instead to canvas of another kind and to paints 
and easels and maul-sticks. 

Disused sail-lofts have their natural corollary 
in deserted fishermen's cottages, and in those 
humble dwellings the artists find their econom- 
ical homes for two-thirds of the year, renting 
them for the remaining third to summer visitors. 
Hence the barb of the local satire : " They call 
themselves artists, and all they do is to take a 
house and then let it for double the rent." 

Nor does the native point of view stop at a 
shrewd suspicion that some of the artists find 
greater profit in their subletting enterprises 
than in their labours at the easel. Clinging to 
their Bohemianism in spite of the nearness of 
" the old world," some of the painters forgot 
at first to respect the Sabbatarian and other 
prejudices of their simple neighbours. Out of 
that forgetfulness grew contempt. Thus one 




A ST. IVES STUDIO. 




AN E.XHIBITION AT ST. IVES. 



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AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 

local legend tells of a driver who, when his 
horse had fallen, after exhausting his usual 

vocabulary, resorted to, " Get up you d d 

artist ! " And another St. Ives anecdote relates 
how a native questioned a young lady visitor 
thus : " You're not one of they artists, are 
you?" Heedless of the answer, "No; I wish 
I was," the native found himself able to reach 
the comforting conclusion, " Ah, I thought you 
was a lady." 

Models are plentiful for the painters of St. 
Ives. Toilers of the sea reddened by wind and 
spray and sun; anxious wives whose eager 
faces reflect the weary watchings of stormy 
nights; peasants of farm and moor; here and 
there a wrinkled miner, a survival of an industry 
almost forgotten; supple boys and girls fair 
and swarthy, garbed in the rough but picturesque 
raiment of fishermen's children. These latter 
the painters lure into their studios without 
motherly preparation for formal " sittings," 
only to provoke the expostulation : ** I don't 
like my children sent dirty all over the world. 
They ain't always dirty." 

British art owes not alone to the St. Ives colony 
those translucent seascapes which are its most 
conspicuous product; it is indebted further for 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

many a canvas which seeks to reveal the inner 
spirit of dissenting religious Hfe. Methodism, 
and other severely simple forms of Christian 
faith, can count many adherents in St. Ives, 
and these pious souls have not been unnoted by 
the painters who dwell in their midst. There 
have already passed into the history of British 
art not a few canvases which have depicted the 
dissenters of St. Ives at their devotions, and it 
is the chief merit of those pictures that they have 
pierced through the homeliness of rude wor- 
shippers and glorified the soul of their faith. 
For all their adoption of an eighteenth-century 
fashion of the Christian creed, these lowly wor- 
shippers preserve the unquestioning assurance 
of a long-past age, and they as well as their land 
seem to bring one ** very near the old world." 

Apart from its church, St. Ives cannot boast 
any buildings of ornate pretensions. The houses 
are simple, stone-built structures for the most 
part, harmonizing faithfully with the remoteness 
of the town's general atmosphere, and following 
in irregular lines the abrupt and rapid ascents 
and descents of the narrow and tortuous streets. 
Few of those streets have any sidewalks, a 
deficiency which throws the pedestrian on his 
resources when meeting a chance vehicle, but 

10 



AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 

they are so rich in dehghtful nooks and corners 
that no one would have them other than they 
are. 

And there are other compensations. From 
the high land at the back of the town, and at 
each turn in the road on the descent, or through 
the gaps of the huddled houses, there come ever 
and anon glimpses of the bay of St. Ives, un- 
rivalled along all the coast of England for its 
broad curving sweep or its placid aspect. From 
the Island point on the west to Godrevy on the 
east is a distance of but three short miles, and 
the farthest shore of the bay is but a couple of 
miles from the open sea. A small stage for the 
pageantry of nature, but sufficient. The scene 
is hardly for an hour the same. Now it is framed 
with the verdant ridge of the curving shore; 
anon a silver veil obliterates that dividing line 
and mingles the picture with the illimitable 
heavens. And the waters beneath are as change- 
ful as the clouds above. This hour they will 
throw back the deep blue of the upper spaces; 
the next they will change chameleon-like to the 
hue of the sands they lave. And ever, amid all 
the transitions of light and colour, there is the 
voice, the caressing voice of the sea. 

Yet the harbour is close at hand, the harbour 

11 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

where the labour of man rather than the repose 
of nature is the dominant note. Save during 
the calm of the day of rest, here is the centre of 
activity in St. Ives. Mounds of baskets and 
boxes speak of the awaited harvest of the sea, 
and that is an idle hour when boats are not 
coming to land with their freights, or carts are 
not being backed down in the shallow water to 
the side of some laden craft. Higher up on 
the beach, strown with the dark wrack of the 
sea, or littered with cordage and chains and 
anchors, such of the fishing fleet as need repairs 
recline at a picturesque angle, the graceful lines 
of the boats rendered still more attractive by 
being seen through the smoke ascending from 
beneath cauldrons of boiling tar. 

Fourteen miles westward from St. Ives the last 
rocks of England drop downward into the wide 
Atlantic. The country between is mostly moor- 
land, lifting itself now and then into a hilly 
summit, barren of trees, and fronting the gaze 
of man with a strangely impassive aspect. The 
dominant colour is the greyish hue of ancient 
granite, relieved in patches with the green and 
gold of gorse or the purple of heather. Odd 
shaped boulders are scattered everywhere over 
the landscape, and everything seems to belong 

12 



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ST. IVES' HARBOUR. 




gurnard's head. 



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AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 

to the past. The very stone fences that skirt 
the roads and divide the landscape into irregular 
plots are so amorphous in shape and so stained 
by time that each boulder might challenge belief 
as a relic of the Druidic age. No wonder Max 
Miiller felt '* very near the old world." 

Often in roaming through this hinterland the 
explorer finds the skyline broken by a pertinent 
reminder of far-off days. It will take the form 
of a square stone-built structure having at its 
side a slender, overtopping chimneyshaft, and 
enquiry will elicit the information that this 
building is but one of the countless engine- 
houses which mark the sites of the abandoned 
mines of Cornwall. 

Among the legends of the county is one which 
offers an ingenious explanation of how tin came 
to be discovered in Cornwall: 

" S. Piran came over from Ireland in a 
coracle, and, like a prudent man, brought with 
him a bottle of whisky. On landing on the north 
coast he found that there was a hermit there 
named Chigwidden. The latter was quite 
agreeable to be friends with the new-comer, who 
was full of Irish tales, Irish blarney, and had, 
to boot, a bottle of Irish whisky. Who would 
not love a stranger under the circumstances ? 

13 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Brothers Chigwidden and Piran drank up the 
bottle. 

*" By dad/ said Piran, 'bothered if there be 
another dhrop to be squeezed out ! Never mind, 
my spiritual brother, I'll show you how to distil 
the crayture. Pile me up some stones, and 
we'll get up the devil of a fire, and we shall 
make enough to expel the deuce out of ould 
Cornwall.' 

" So Chigwidden collected a number of black 
stones, and the two saints made a fine fire — 
when, lo ! out of the black stones thus exposed 
to the heat ran a stream like liquid silver. Thus 
was tin discovered." 

That picturesque legend would place the dis- 
covery of tin in Cornwall somewhere in the fifth 
century. Unfortunately for the legend, the 
ancients came to Cornwall for tin many centuries 
before Piran and Chigwidden celebrated their 
friendship over a bottle of Irish whisky. Diodo- 
rus, who dates back to the closing half of the 
century before Christ, speaks of the inhabitants 
of the extremity of Britain who " prepare tin, 
working very skilfully the earth which produces 
it." And they continued to work " very skil- 
fully " for many centuries. A hundred years 
ago the tin and copper mines of Cornwall pro- 

14 



AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 

duced metal to the value of about one million 
pounds annually. But that is a prosperity of the 
past. Owing primarily to the discovery of sur- 
face tin, which can be more cheaply worked, 
and to a less degree to rash and dishonest specula- 
tion, the mining industry of Cornwall has practi- 
cally ceased to exist, its only memorials being 
these silent engine-houses, which, with their 
vacant windows, have the appearance of stolid 
giants watching the landscape with eyeless 
sockets. 

But even that calamity is not without its bright 
side. William Borlase, the devoted county 
historian already alluded to, had to confess, a 
century and a half ago, that the air of Cornwall 
was not all that could be desired. '* As there are 
so many mines in Cornwall," he wrote, *' and 
most of them yield sulphur, vitriol, mundic, 
and gossan, they cannot but affect the air 
with their steams in proportion to the quantity 
yielded by the mine, and the facility with which 
their parts separate and ascend into the atmos- 
phere." It must have grieved Mr. Borlase to 
make that confession, especially as he was not 
ignorant of the fact that an Elizabethan writer 
had declared that the " ayre " of Cornwall 
" is cleansed, as with bellowes, by the billows, 

15 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 



and flowing and ebbing of the sea, and there- 
through becommeth pure and subtle, and by 
consequence, healthfull." Well, the faithful 
shade of Mr. Borlase must rejoice that his own 
one-time truthful record must now give place 
to the Elizabethan eulogy owing to the abandon- 
ment of those " so many mines." 

Turn which way he will, the explorer of this 
Cornish hinterland finds his feet pressing on 
ancient landmarks. Among the sand dunes 
near Godrevy lighthouse he can lay his hands 
on the stones of the oldest Christian building in 
England, the oratory of St. Gwithian, one of the 

numerous Irish saints who 
sailed into St. Ives' bay in 
the fifth and sixth centuries. 
A few miles southward from 
St. Ives he can 
climb to the ruins 
of Castle-an- 
.*s:i>-T^ ..jijiwiMi, ' Dinas and ex- 

^^hS\'.^>'^ ^^^^^^M^^ plore the narrow 

apartments of a 

stronghold which 

was a royal residence in the long-dead years 

when Cornwall was a kingdom in its own right. 

Or, if he would delve farther back into the 

16 



■^,f^r> 




CASTLE - AN - DINAS 



AT THE EDGE OF THE LAND 

past, and appreciate to the full the sentiment of 
close contact with Max Miiller's " old world," let 
him seek out Chapel Carn Brea Hill, where the 
swing of the broad Atlantic against the last iron 
rocks of England will form no unfitting accom- 
paniment to his meditations. On this hill, the 
last in all England and a beacon well known to 
those sailing from the west, he will reach back 
with more than imagination to the Stone Age. 
On the crown of the hill are the foundation stones 
of a Christian edifice, but below that is a dolmen 
of the Age of Bronze, and beneath that again 
is a giant's cave of the Age of Stone. Nowhere 
in all England shall the explorer get nearer the 
*' old world " than that. 



17 



II 

FAIR DEVON 



FAIR DEVON 

FOR three distinct districts of England a 
similar claim is niade. Kent, the Isle of 
Wight, and Devonshire is each in turn 
declared to be " the garden of England." 

To decide among these contestants might be 
as dangerous an undertaking as that which fell 
to the lot of Paris. The county of Kent has 
undeniable charms : its gently undulating land- 
scape, its peaceful farms, its picturesque hop- 
gardens and oasts, its venerable churches and 
castles, all combine to create a memory of 
enchanting beauty. Nor is the Isle of Wight 
less liberally endowed with nature's favours or 
romantic memorials of human history. Yet, 
when all pleas have been entered and weighed, 
no other verdict is possible than that Devonshire 
is the fairest, the most beautiful of all English 
counties. And in reaching that conclusion it 
may be that the factor which influenced Paris 
is not inoperative; for the daughters of Devon 
are the Helens of England. 

21 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Of course a Devonian is a prejudiced witness. 
Yet the eulogy of one such may be cited, chiefly 
because it suggests some of those quahties which 
are still characteristic of the county. William 
Browne, the Elizabethan poet who sang " Bri- 
tannia's Pastorals," saluted Devonshire in these 
proud lines: 

Hail thou, my native soil ! thou blessed plot, 

Whose equal all the world affordeth not ! 

Show me who can so many crystal rills, 

Such sweet clothed valleys, or aspiring hills; 

Such woods, grand pastures, quarries, wealthy mines. 

Such rocks in which the diamond fairiy shines; 

And if the earth can show the like again. 

Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men. 

Time never can produce men to o'ertake 

The fames of Grenville, Davies, Gilbert, Drake, 

Or worthy Hawkins, or of thousands more. 

That by their power made the Devonian shore 

Mock the proud Tagus ; for whose richest spoil 

The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soil 

Bankrupt of store, knowing it would quit the cost 

By winning this, though all the rest were lost. 

Remembering how potent a part the sons of 
Devon bore in the overthrow of the Spanish 
Armada, Browne's pride in his county is par- 
donable. Neither in the sixteenth nor any later 
century has any other district of England bred 
so many " sea-ruling men." Even were that 

22 



FAIR DEVON 

not true, Devon has glory enough in numbering 
among her children Sir Richard Grenville, the 
hero of that dauntless sea-fight which rivals the 
glory of Thermopylae. 

Some items in Browne's catalogue of praise 
may have been deleted by the hand of time, and 
it is questionable whether the rocks " in which the 
diamond fairly shines " ever existed ; but in the 
main the attractions of Devon are unchanged. 
Yet, lest disappointment usurp the place of 
realized expectations, one warning should be 
laid to heart. The county will not give up its 
charms to the hasty traveller. He who clings 
to the steel highway of the railroad, who makes 
towns and cities the boundaries of his explora- 
tions, and dashes in speed from one " sight " 
to another, will leave the county wholly ignorant 
of its peculiar beauties. There is no district in 
England where it is so essential to desert the 
beaten track, to cut one's self off from com- 
munication with conventional transport; where 
the byways are infinitely more than the high- 
ways. 

One word frequently recurrent in Devonshire 
speech holds priceless suggestion for those to 
whom it is more than a name. It is the word 
** combe," a geographical term of distinctive 

23 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

West country use. To harmonize with its broad 
Devonshire pronunciation it would be better 
spelt *' coombe," but even that concession to 
phonetics will fail to represent the melody of 
the word on native lips. And neither pen nor 
painter's brush can hope to render justice to 
that product of the Devon landscape for which 
the word stands. Combes, as Eden Phillpotts 
explains in *' My Devon Year," have a dis- 
tinction of their own, " and few natural scenes 
can be compared with these deep hollows and 
sudden valleys. They might be likened to 
miniature presentments of the Derbyshire dales, 
or Scottish glens made tame and tiny and 
sleepy. They might be called denes or dingles, 
straths or dells, or any other word that stands to 
mean a sequestered place within the lap of 
high lands. Some of our combes," Mr. Phill- 
potts continues, " open gradually, through pas- 
tures and orchards, from the hills to the plains; 
some break out in steep gullies and embouchures 
of limestone or sandstone to the sea; some are 
concavities, where Nature hollows her hand to 
hold man's homestead. Gentle depressions 
between red-bosomed hills, wide meadows ex- 
tending to the estuaries of rivers, sharp rifts 
echoing with thunder of waves, and upland 

24 



3t^<]C^t>^C>%C>7<][>^C>?CC^<]C>^C^<]C>?<)C>%C^C^<JC>?<)C>^ 

9^ 




ON A DEVON STREAM. 



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gc>^<3C^Cg3Cg3C^(:^<3C^<)Cg3Cg3Cg3Cg3[>^<3C^C:g3Cg3Cg3(^^ 



FAIR DEVON 

plains between the high lands, where whole 
villages may cuddle, may all be combes. So 
much do they vary in their character." 

But specific description may be more illumi- 
nating than general characterization. So another 
whole-hearted lover of Devon, Charles Kingsley, 
shall, from the pages of " Westward Ho ! " tell 
what his eyes saw in the combes of that fortunate 
land. " Each is like the other, and each is like 
no other English scenery. Each has its upright 
walls, inland of rich oakwood, nearer the sea 
of dark green furze, then of smooth turf, then of 
weird black cliffs which range out right and left 
into the deep sea, in castles, spires, and wings of 
jagged iron-stone. Each has its narrow strip 
of fertile meadow, its crystal trout-stream 
winding across and across from one hill-foot to 
the other; its grey stone mill, with the water 
sparkling and humming round the dripping well ; 
its dark rock pools above the tide-mark, where 
the salmon-trout gather in from their Atlantic 
wanderings, after each autumn flood; its ridges 
of blown sand, bright with golden trefoil and 
crimson lady's fingers, its grey bank of polished 
pebbles, down which the stream rattles towards 
the sea below." Such is the combe of the north- 
ern coast, but those of the southern shore " are 

25 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

narrower and less searched by the sun. They 
He deep hid in ferns and shade-loving things; 
they hide the lovely bee-orchis, the purple 
gromwell, the lesser meadow-rue, the seaside 
carrot, the crow-garlic, the wood-vetch, the 
Bithynian vetch, and other treasures. Their 
sides are draped with the wild clematis, their 
red cliff-faces furnish a home for jackdaws and 
hawks. And inland lie those deep resting-places 
that abound in this county of many hills." 

If the studious observer of nature attempted 
to analyse its aspects in Devonshire in search of 
its most distinctive quality, the quality which 
lends such a peculiar charm of grace and soft- 
ness to the landscape, he would probably reach 
the conclusion that the fern is chiefly responsible 
for that effect. Botanists have pointed out that 
in the number and variety of those beautiful 
plants Devon outrivals every county of England. 
*' There they are in very truth at home. The 
soil and the air are adapted to them, and they 
adapt themselves to the whole aspect of the place. 
They clothe its hillsides and its hilltops; they 
grow in the moist depths of its valleys; they 
fringe the banks of its streams ; they are to be 
found in the recesses of its woods ; they hang 
from rocks and walls and trees, and crowd into 



FAIR DEVON 



the towns and villages, fastening themselves 
with sweet familiarity even to the houses." 

But of the inanimate landscape there is one 
other feature which must not be overlooked. 
The lanes of Devon are as distinctive as its 
combes, its ferns, its " sea-ruling men " and its 
clotted cream. No 
other rural high- 
ways of England 
are like unto them, 
unless it were those 
fearsome " hollow 
lanes " of Selborne 
which Gilbert 
White celebrated, 
but are now things 
of the past. The 
lanes of Devon are 
as labyrinthine as 
a maze, are senti- 
nelled on either 

side by lofty banks crowned with tall hedges, 
are so narrow that the outstretched hands 
may often touch either bank, but are withal 
the treasure-houses of nature's fairest jewels. 
Reflecting on these qualities a local poet found 
his muse inspired to celebrate a comparison 

27 




A DEVON LANE 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

between the Devon lane and marriage, with 
the following result: 

In the first place, 'tis long, and when once you are in it, 
It holds you as fast as a cage does a linnet; 
For howe'er rough and dirty the road may be found, 
Drive forward you must, there is no turning round ! 

But though 'tis so long, it is not very wide; 

For two are the most that together can ride; 

And e'en then 'tis a chance but they get in a pother. 

And jostle and cross, and run foul of each other. 

Then the banks are so high, to the left hand and right. 
That they shut up the beauties around them from sight ! 
And hence, you'll allow, 'tis an inference plain. 
That marriage is just like a Devonshire lane. 

But, thinks I too, these banks, within which we are pent. 
With bud, blossom, and berry are richly besprent; 
And the conjugal fence, which forbids us to roam. 
Looks lovely when decked with the comforts of home. 

Yet Devon combes, and ferns, and lanes might 
leave the visitor cold if they were all. Few, 
perhaps, ever stop to consider why some land- 
scapes, though painted by great artists, give 
the impression of emptiness. But the secret is 
not deeply hidden. A picture, be it a canvas or a 
living landscape, lacks its completing charm 
unless it has some touch of human nature. A 

28 



|[>7<]C>7<]C>?<0^?<3C>?<3(>?<]C>?<J[>?<3(>?<3C>?<0C>?<3[>^^ 




A FARMHOUSE IN DEVON. 




COC KINGTON VTLLA.GE, 



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^t5<l!S<!l^<5CS3t>i<lCgl&i<ll>i<JCgll^<JCg3!^<]Cgl[>^<)tg3D^(^<3l^<l[>^<](^<lC^^^ 



FAIR DEVON 

figure or two will serve, but the springs of sym- 
pathy are more surely unsealed by the sight of 
a human dwelling. That is the most potent 
factor in establishing close relation between a 
beautiful sweep of country and its observer. 

Such a factor is never far to seek in rural 
Devon. And in most instances it takes a form 
of irresistible appeal. The county is particu- 
larly rich in ancient family mansions of the 
Elizabethan period, suggestive of spacious cham- 
bers which have been hallowed by the sorrows 
and joys of many generations ; of grassy alleys 
and flower-adorned bowers. And it is richer 
still in picturesque farmhouses which are little 
changed from the far-off years when their roofs 
sheltered Devon's fanaous *' sea-ruling " sons. 
But richest of all is this fair land in the lowly, 
rose and creeper-clad, thatched cottage of the 
peasant. Because of their proximity to the 
fashionable resort of Torquay, the thatched 
cottages of Cockington village are probably the 
best-known examples of these humble Devon 
homes, but their duplicates may be found far 
and wide throughout the county. 

Few of the counties of England have bred so 
many immortal sons as Devon. To the great 
band of empire-builders she gave Sir Walter 

29 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Raleigh, whose picturesque birthplace with its 
thatched and gabled roof and mullioned windows 
may be seen at Hayes Barton; to the company 
of artists she added Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose 
natal village awaits the visitor at Plympton Earl ; 
in the glorious choir of English bards she is 
nobly represented by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
who first saw the light at Ottery St. Mary; and 
Charles Kingsley, who was born at Holne, gives 
glory to his county in the realm of fiction. 

Historic landmarks cluster thickly along the 
south coast of Devon. It was on the Hoe at 
Plymouth, where a fine statue of the hero may 
be seen, that Drake in 1588 insisted on finishing 
his memorable game at bowls, protesting that 
there was time enough for that and for thrashing 
the Spaniards too. This was the port, too, from 
which, thirty-two years later, the Mayflower 
finally set sail on her " waightie voiag.'* Farther 
east, round the lofty cape of Berry Head, on the 
western shore of Torbay, lies the fishing town of 
Brixliam. Here, in 1688, a landing was effected 
which had as notable an influence on the course 
of English history as the coming of William of 
Normandy. W^hen William of Orange set foot on 
shore in that far-off year Brixham was ** undis- 
turbed by the bustle either of commerce or of 

30 



FAIR DEVON 






pleasure ; and the huts of ploughmen and fisher- 
men were thinly scattered over what is now the site 
of crowded marts and luxurious pavilions." The 
Prince landed " where the quay of Brixham 
now stands. The whole aspect of the place has 
been altered. Where we now see a port crowded 
with shipping, and a market swarming with 
buyers and sellers, the 
waves then broke on a 
desolate beach ; but a 
fragment of the rock 
on which the deliverer 
stepped from his boat 
has been carefully pre- 
served, and is set up as 
an object of public ven- 
eration in the centre of 
that busy wharf." 

Only a few miles away 
as the crow flies, a short distance east of Tor- 
quay, is a spot which in the domain of human 
thought has wrought as momentous changes 
as the landing of William of Orange effected 
in English history. In a small wooded limestone 
hill on the western side of a valley the traveller 
will find the modest entrance to Kent's Cavern, 
the exploration of which yielded results of 

31 




ENTRANCE TO KENT S CAVERN 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

immense importance in deciding the antiquity 
of man. 

Although the existence of Kent's Cavern has 
been known for a longer time than there is any 
record of, the first exploration of its numerous 
chambers seems to have been made less than a 
century ago. But a thorough investigation was 
not begun until 1865, when William Pengelly 
was commissioned by the British Association 
for the Advancement of Science to carry out 
an exhaustive exploration. The work, which 
was continued until 1880, thus extending over 
a period of fifteen years, could not have been 
committed to more capable hands. It has been 
described as " the most complete and systematic 
investigation of a cavern " ever attempted, and 
the thoroughness with which Mr. Pengelly car- 
ried it to its completion has assured him as 
secure a place in the annals of science as that of 
Darwin. During the fifteen years in which the 
work was in progress he visited the cavern almost 
daily for an average period of five hours, and 
then laboured at home in the examination of 
specimens often into the early morning hours. 
His devotion to his task, then, richly de- 
served the prospective epitaph he wrote for 
himself : 

32 



FAIR DEVON 

Here rests his head on balls of album groecum, 
A youth who loved Cave-earth and stalagmite; 

If fossil bones they held, he'd keenly seek 'em; 
Exhume and name them with supreme delight. 

His hammer, chisels, compass lie beside him; 

His friends have o'er him piled this heap of stones. 
Alas ! alas ! poor fellow ! woe betide him 

If, in the other world, there are no bones. 



Probably few visitors to Kent's Cavern will 
be interested in the minute details of Mr. Pen- 
gelly's laborious work; they are rather for the 
geologist to appraise ; but no one can grope 
through these quiet and sombre chambers 
unmoved. They have been visited by countless 
men and women of note, and to each doubtless 
they have been impressive because of the 
indisputable evidence they have afforded of the 
prodigious antiquity of man. 

Whether the traveller in Devonshire devotes 
himself to exploring its combes, or wandering 
in its lanes, or visiting the haunts of famous 
men, or searching out historic spots, he will 
always be able to enjoy two of the county's 
distinctive products. Keats has preserved the 
memory of one of them in some verses he wrote 
while on a visit to Teignmouth. Thus, in a 

33 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

poetical epistle to the painter Haydon — another 
son of Devon — he confessed : 

Here all the summer could I stay. 

For there's a Bishop's Teign, 

And a King's Teign, 
And Coomb at the clear Teign's head; 

Where, close by the stream. 

You may have your cream. 
All spread upon barley bread. 

And another set of verses opened with these 
lines : 

Where be you going, you Devon maid ? 

And what have ye there in the basket ? 
Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy; 

Will ye give me some cream if I ask it ? 

It is not surprising that Devonshire cream, 
" clotted cream " as it is called, should have 
made such an abiding impression on the poet's 
memory. Richard Doddridge Blackmore owns 
that no praise of " Lorna Doone " pleased him 
half so much as that encomium which declared 
the novel was " as good as Devonshire cream — 
almost." Many visitors to England who have 
not been in Devonshire labour under the delusion 
that they have tasted the cream of the county, 
and it certainly is true that large quantities are 

34 



FAIR DEVON 

sent to different parts of England daily through 
the post. But clotted cream eaten in Devon and 
the same cream eaten outside its boundaries are 
two different things; for, somehow, it seems to 
lose its delicate flavour when tasted anywhere 
save in the county itself. 

Perhaps a similar though not so marked a 
transformation may be noticed in Devonshire 
cider. Yet, if rumour be true, the transformation 
may be gain rather than a loss. The story is 
told of a gentleman who applied to a Devon 
apple-orchard farmer for a hogshead of his 
sparkling cider. The farmer replied that he 
could not oblige him as in previous years, as 
a certain London firm had purchased his entire 
output of the beverage. On writing to the firm 
in question the disappointed customer received 
a note to this effect : '* We are not cider mer- 
chants. You have made some mistake. We are 
a firm of champagne-importing merchants from 
the celebrated vineyards of MM. So and So, of 
So and So." 

What adds greatly to the delights of rambling 
in Devon is the courtesy of its natives. The West 
country folk of England are perhaps more 
unspoilt than any others, open-hearted in their 
hospitality, and notable for certain old-world 

35 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

graces of manner and speech. But they are not 
slow of wit. Thus the record stands of a boorish 
bicyclist who, not sure of his bearings in the 
quickly gathering dusk, accosted an aged farmer 
leaning on a gate : 

" I say Johnnie, where am 1? I want a bed." 
*' You'm fourteen miles from Wonford Asy- 
lum," was the quiet response, '* and fourteen 
miles from Newton Work'us, and fourteen miles 
from Princetown Prison, and I reckon you 
could find quarters in any o' they — and suit- 
able." 



36 



Ill 

BATH AND ITS BATHS 



BATH AND ITS BATHS 

AT the risk of offending the somewhat 
sensitive guardians of the honour of Bath, 
the reflection shall be hazarded that the 
future of that city cannot hope to rival the glory 
of its past. In view of the vicissitudes of that 
past this may seem a daring prophecy. A 
chronicler of the early eighteenth century might 
have felt he was on sure ground in indulging in a 
similar forecast, only to have his gift of pre- 
vision made ridiculous by events which were still 
to happen. 

Bath, indeed, has passed through three clearly- 
defined epochs of prosperity. The first of these 
dates far back to the period of the Roman occu- 
pation of Britain. Ignoring as little better than 
idle legends such stories as are told of British 
precursers, it seems established beyond dispute 
that the earliest to lay the foundations of a 
considerable city in this " warm vale " of the 
West were the triumphant masters of the old 
world. In dealing with such a remote period of 

39 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

history it cannot be expected that any hard and 
fast date shall be available, and yet it seems 
likely that the advent of the Romans may be 
placed somewhere about the year 45 of our era. 
It was in the early years of the reign of Claudius, 
that mild and amiable occupant of the Caesars' 
throne, that a Roman legion is recorded to have 
made a complete conquest of this part of Somer- 
setshire. To this period, then, it is usual to 
" attribute the first foundation of Bath, when 
the Romans, attracted by the appearance of 
those hot springs, whose uses they so well knew 
and so highly valued, fixed upon the low and 
narrow vale in which they rose for the establish- 
ment of a station and the erection of a town." 

For nearly four centuries the power of Rome 
was supreme in this sequestered dale of the 
West. Upon the rude foundations of the city 
reared about the year 45 subsequent rulers from 
the city by the Tiber upraised luxurious villas 
and stately temples. Due attention having been 
given by early comers to the military defences of 
the place, its subsequent and more leisurely 
adornment followed as the natural expression 
of the Roman temperament. " The elegant 
Agricola," surmises a local historian, *' reposing 
a winter here from his successful campaign in 

40 



BATH AND ITS BATHS 

Wales, would, in pursuance of his customary 




A CORNER OF THE BATH8 

policy, decorate it with buildings, dedicated to 
piety and pleasure; and the polite Adrian, 

41 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

thirty years afterwards, founded an establish- 
ment in it, which at once rendered it the most 
important place in the southern part of Britain. 
This was Fabricay or College of Armourers, in 
which the military weapons for the use of the 
legions were manufactured." 

Thus it is not difficult for the imagination to 
trace that transformation of Bath into a miniature 
Rome which was repeated so often in the subject 
provinces of the empire. And there is another 
factor which demands special attention in the 
present case. The Roman was a confirmed 
devotee of the bath. No city of his was com- 
plete without its ThermoB, the meeting-place for 
the idle as well as the halls for ablution. An 
essential feature of these institutions was the 
underground furnace by which the water was 
heated, but at Bath the Romans were spared the 
expense and labour of furnace-constructing 
owing to the abundant waters issuing from their 
springs already hot. 

Under such circumstances of unusual good 
fortune it is not surprising that, in addition to 
the baths themselves, the most notable building 
reared here was a Temple of Minerva. It was 
erected on the site of the Pump-room of to-day, 
and considerable remains of its beautiful masonry 

42 



BATH AND ITS BATHS 

were brought to light years ago and may still 
be seen in the Royal Literary Institution of the 
city. These relics include the tympanum of the 
Temple, and substantial fragments of columns, 
cornices and pilasters, all testifying to the 
elegance and superb workmanship of a building 
which cannot have had its equal in all Britain. 

Nor are these the only surviving vestiges of 
the Roman occupation of Bath. Keeping them 
silent company are pediments, and portals, and 
votive altars and monumental stones. From 
the time-worn inscriptions on these altars can 
be pieced together that gratitude for recovered 
health which was doubtless so fresh and sincere 
in those far-off years, but which sounds like a 
grim satire on human self-importance now that 
health and life itself matters so little; and this 
page of the dim past is fitly rounded off by the 
medicine stamp of a Roman quack which records 
that it was *' the Phoehurn (or Blistering CoUy- 
rium) of T. Junianus for such hopeless cases as 
have been given up by the Physicians." Alas for 
T. Junianus, who is himself now in a far more 
hopeless case than any of those credulous patients 
who pinned their faith to his Blistering Colly- 
rium ! 

For the beauty of its situation, the healing 

43 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

properties of its copious springs, and the social 
amenities it offered, Bath was no doubt exceed- 
ingly popular with the Roman soldiers and 
governors. Such a city must have offered liberal 
compensations for the exile even from Italy. 
In hardly any other outpost of the empire could 
life have held so many elements of pleasure. 
Yet, as the fifth century opened, the premoni- 
tions of coming changes must have cast a gloom 
over this happy Roman community. Internal 
decay and the assaults of the barbarians on the 
Western Empire were sapping the power which 
had so long held the nations in bondage. As 
each of the swift and tremendous blows of 
Alaric crippled the strength of Rome the neces- 
sity grew ever urgent for the withdrawal of the 
legions from the remote frontiers of the empire, 
and thus it came to pass that soon after the fifth 
century had entered upon its second decade the 
Roman masters of Britain sailed away from its 
shores for ever. So closed the first prosperous 
epoch in the history of Bath. 

And now came the centuries of adversity. 
Left to their own resources after enjoying for 
so long the protection of Roman arms, the 
natives of Britain became the prey of the Saxon 
and Danish hordes which poured into the land 

44 



BATH AND ITS BATHS 

from over the North Sea. Many of these plun- 
dering bands penetrated to this fair West country 
and Bath itself became the centre of frequent 
and fierce conflict. To these years belong the 
exploits of arms with which romance and poetry 
have enhaloed the shadowy figure of Arthur 
and his knights of the Round Table, and some 
authorities have identified Bath with the prince's 
famous victory over the Saxons at Mons Badoni- 
cus in 520. But the prowess of Arthur or other 
native warriors was in vain ; as the sixth century 
was waning an irresistible army of Saxons swept 
down on Somersetshire, overthrew the Britons 
at Deorham, eight miles from Bath, and firmly 
established Saxon ascendency where the Romans 
had so long made their home. 

With this conquest there broke the dawn of a 
second era of prosperity for " the city in the 
warm vale." And now the Roman name of 
AquoB Solis gradually gave way to the Ilcjet 
Bathen — " hot baths " — of the Saxons, to be 
abbreviated in the unborn centuries to the one 
significant word of to-day. 

Save for an interregnum of misfortune during 
the raids of the Danes, Bath enjoyed many 
tokens of royal favour under the rule of the 
Saxons. Osric founded a convent here in 676 ; 

45 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Athelstan established a mint within its walls; 
and Edgar, in 973, chose the city as the scene of 
a pageant of unprecedented splendour. " Con- 
demned by Archbishop Dunstan," so the story 
goes, ** to atone for an offence against the church, 
he was restricted from wearing his crown in 
public for the space of seven years; but, when 
this ecclesiastical censure was satisfied, he 
selected Bath as the place where his forgiveness 
should be published, by the splendid and gor- 
geous ceremony of his coronation." 

For several centuries after the Norman con- 
quest Bath sinks into the background of English 
history. It emerges from obscurity for a brief 
space now and then, as when it was plundered 
by Geoffrey of Contance, and when, in 1574, 
it was honoured by a visit from Queen Eliza- 
beth ; but in the main the city slumbered peace- 
fully on in its picturesque vale, untroubled by 
visions of the years of fame which were drawing 
near. 

Towards the close of the seventeenth century 
the outward aspect of the city gave little promise 
of the golden era which was soon to dawn. 
Although it had long been the seat of a bishop, 
and was resorted to by the sick for its springs, 
Bath was then, Macaulay says, " a maze of 

46 



BATH AND ITS BATHS 

only four or five hundred houses, crowded within 
an old wall in the vicinity of the Avon. . . . That 
beautiful city which charms even eyes familiar 
with the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio, 
and which the genius of Anstey and of Smollett, 
of Frances Burney and of Jane Austen, has made 
classic ground, had not begun to exist. Milsom 
Street itself was an open field lying far beyond 
the walls ; and hedgerows intersected the space 
which is now covered by the Crescent and the 
Circus. The poor patients to whom the waters 
had been recommended lay on straw in a place 
which, to use the language of a contemporary 
physician, was a covert rather than a lodging." 

Some fifty years later a marvellous change 
had taken place. To whom belongs the credit.'' 
or to what particular incident was it due ? 

Bathonians and others have been exercised 
with those questions for a long time. Now and 
then the discussion has waxed hot and furious, 
and it ill becomes an outsider to venture into the 
melee. Yet a dispassionate survey of the situa- 
tion reveals several instructive facts. One of 
these is that the visit, in 1687, of the Queen of 
James II. directed attention to the waters of 
Bath as a probable remedy for barrenness ; a 
second is that the sojourn of Queen Anne in 

47 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

1702 raised the city in social esteem ; and a third 
introduces the claims of Beau Nash and John 
Wood. 

Here debatable ground is reached. Social 
England was ripe for a change. " People of 
fashion," as Goldsmith relates, " had no agree- 
able summer retreat from the town," and the 
claims of Bath were handicapped by the fact 
that the amusements " were neither elegant, nor 
conducted with delicacy." Manners in general 
were at a discount, and " the lodgings for visitors 
were paltry, though expensive." Nor was this 
all. Such reputation as the city possessed was 
founded upon its healing waters, and that 
reputation was in serious danger. One of the 
leading physicians of the age, in revenge for 
affronts offered him at Bath, declared that he 
would write a pamphlet which would " cast a 
toad into the spring." 

Such was the condition of the city at the 
advent of Beau Nash in 1703. That some 
twenty-five years later Bath had become the 
social centre of England, and had entered upon 
a century of unrivalled prosperity, is often placed 
to his credit. To him, it is asserted, the city 
" must mainly attribute the rapidity with which 
it sprang from an insignificant place into the 

48 



BATH AND ITS BATHS 

focus of fashionable life, the most ' pleasurable ' 
city in the Kingdom." It is well that this eulogy 
is qualified, but the qualification would have 
been more to the point had it been increased in 
emphasis and laid stress upon the name of John 
Wood. The latter was no Master of the Cere- 
monies; he was just a plain builder; but if 
destiny had not ordained his arrival on the 
scene at this crisis not all Nash's solemnity in 
" adjusting trifles " would have availed to start 
Bath on its career of prosperity. 

Yet, in claiming justice for Wood, it is impera- 
tive that due praise be also given to another of 
the creators of modern Bath. Indeed, when all 
the facts are considered, it is impossible to resist 
the conclusion that this other man, Ralph Allen 
by name, deserves more of the credit of the city's 
golden era than either Nash or Wood. Allen, 
a son of lowly parents, was but a youth when he 
settled in Bath as a post oflBce assistant. His 
integrity, industry and ability soon marked him 
out for advancement, and in 1720 he promul- 
gated a scheme, of postal service for England 
which, adopted by the government, yielded him 
a yearly income of twelve thousand pounds. 
He was also interested in another enterprise 
which had more momentous results for the city 

49 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

of his adoption. Acquiring some large quarries 
near Bath, he conceived the idea of exploiting 
the peculiar stone of those quarries for building 
purposes, and it was in the carrying out of that 
scheme he called Wood to his aid. One of the 
greatest needs of the city was more adequate 
private buildings, without which the social 
interest in the place would speedily have died 
out, and that that need was met on such noble 
lines as are testified by the present aspect of 
Bath was due to the initiative of Allen aided by 
the executive skill of Wood and his son. 

Nor should it be overlooked that in other 
respects Allen deserves well of Bath. Not only 
did he take an alert interest in its municipal 
government, and contribute generously to all 
worthy public institutions, but his love of hos- 
pitality was the means of bringing many illus- 
trious visitors to the city. At his mansion of 
Prior Park he received a constant succession of 
famous guests, including Fielding, and Pope, 
and Mason, and Lord Chatham and the younger 
Pitt. So long as English literature endures 
Allen is secure in remembrance. Pope has 
enshrined his memory in the lines. 

" Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame. 
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." 

50 




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THE ROMAN BATHS,' O 

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SITR OF HYPOCAUST BATH. 




BATH AND ITS BATHS 

It is true the poet later in life grew cold towards 
his generous friend, and left him £150 in his 
will, that sum " being, to the best of my calcula- 
tion, the account of what I have received from 
him, partly for my own, and partly for charitable 
uses ; " but the implied satire of that bequest 




BATH ABBEY 

was robbed of its point by Allen remarking, 
** He forgot to add the other to the 150," 
and sending the money to the city hospital. 

Fielding appears to have been a frequent and 
ever welcome guest at Prior Park, and nobly 
did he repay Allen's hospitality by portraying 
his unselfish character in Squire Allworthy in 

51 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

*' Tom Jones," and by inscribing " Amelia " 
to him as a " small token " of his love and 
gratitude and respect. When the great novelist 
passed away, Allen undertook the charge of 
his children, paid for their education and 
remembered them generously in his will. 

No one can muse upon the history of Bath 
from 1725 onwards without being impressed by 
the countless shades of illustrious men and 
women who appear to walk its streets and haunt 
its buildings. Some of these, though not the 
most notable, found a final resting-place in the 
historic Abbey, which is so densely crowded 
with the memorials of the dead as to excuse the 
epigram : 

" These walls, so full of monument and bust, 
Shew how Bath-waters serve to lay the dust." 

Beau Nash is of those buried here; another 
is James Quin, the actor, who declared he did 
not know a better place than Bath for an old 
cock to roost in. It was from this city that Quin 
sent his famous note to his manager Rich. The 
actor had quarrelled with the manager, but in a 
milder mood held out a tentative olive-branch in 
the laconic message : " I am at Bath. Yours, 
James Quin," only to receive the curt reply, 

52 



BATH AND ITS BATHS 

*' Stay there and be damned. Yours, John 
Rich." 

Wherever the visitor wanders in these streets, 
streets from which the tide of fashionable hfe 
has largely receded, he cannot escape memories 
of the men and women who made the fame of 
the late eighteenth century. Thomas Gains- 
borough is here, so busy with his sitters that his 
" house became gains' borough ; " and Edmund 
Burke, come on a last vain quest for health; 
and Nelson, so renewed in strength that he would 
have all his sick friends join him; and the 
young Walter Scott, who was to carry away as 
his most abiding impression his first experience 
of the theatre; and Horace W^alpole, so bored 
with the place that he could only " sit down by 
the waters of Babylon and weep, when I think 
of thee, oh Strawberry ! " ; and James Wolfe, 
seeking strength for his enfeebled body on the 
eve of setting his face towards Quebec and glory ; 
and the Countess of Huntingdon, busy with her 
arrogant letters to the ministers of her sect ; and 
Oliver Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson, and 
countless other immortals. 

Other sons and daughters of fame were to 
enrich the associations of Bath in the opening 
half of the nineteenth century. Hither, as the 

53 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

century dawned, came the gentle Jane Austen, 
to reap the quiet harvest of an observing eye and 
garner its fruits in many a later page. Nor 
should the solitary figure of *' Vathek " Beck- 
ford be forgotten, the rich and gifted misanthrope 
who made so barren a use of his wealth and his 
genius. Late in the procession, too, comes 
the grand and picturesque shade of Walter 
Savage Landor, a familiar figure in the streets 
of Bath for many a year. These children of 
genius have all passed on, and none have suc- 
ceeded them. But for their sake, and because of 
its storied past, Bathonia, the " city of the warm 
vale," will ever hold its place of pride in the 
annals of England. 



54 



IV 
JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

THREE villages in the English county of 
Hampshire have attained a world-wide 
fame; in each case due to the minister 
of the parish ; and in all three the man to whom 
the fame is owing sleeps in the churchyard of 
the hamlet he immortalized. Those three 
villages are Selborne, Eversley and Hursley. 
In the first the patient naturalist, Gilbert White, 
toiled for years on his famous book; in the 
second the stout-hearted novelist-parson, Charles 
Kingsley, spent many of his most fruitful years ; 
and the third was for thirty years the loved home 
of England's greatest religious poet, John Keble. 
But Hursley, which lies a few miles from the 
ancient city of Winchester, attained a quiet 
notoriety in English history nearly two centuries 
before it became the home of John Keble. 
Many centuries earlier still this peaceful parish 
commended itself to Henry de Blois, the brother 
of King Stephen, and here he built a castle of 
which some crumbling fragments still exist on 
his manor of Merdon. And that the early 

57 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Britons and then the Romans were not unknown 
in this picturesque district is proved by archeo- 
logical discoveries that have been made from 
time to time. 

Interesting, however, though it might be to 
dwell upon those survivals of early British and 
Roman days, and to follow the faint clues of 
Henry de Blois' connection with the parish, 
more tangible results can be obtained by fixing 
the mind on the history of Hursley from the date 
— 1639 — when the manor of Merdon came 
into the possession of one named Richard 
Mayor. This Richard Mayor was a son of the 
mayor of Southampton, and his name persists 
in the pages of history because it became linked 
with that of Oliver Cromwell. 

In this way. At the opening of the year 1648 
Cromwell's eldest son, Richard, was unmarried, 
but, having reached his twenty-first year, he and 
his father apparently agreed that it was time 
he took a life-partner. Cromwell himself was 
already a figure of note in the national life. The 
victories of Marston Moor, and Naseby, and 
Basing were already inscribed on the pages of 
history, and by this date he was the recognized 
leader of the Independents and as such a man 
of importance and influence. So notable a man, 

58 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

it may readily be imagined, might easily have 
formed a high matrimonial alliance for his 
eldest son. Indeed, actual offers of such an 
alliance were not lacking. Cromwell himself 
states that he " had an offer of a very great 
proposition from a father of his daughter," 
which, although not lacking in " fairness," he 
had put from him because he could not see 
therein '* that assurance of godliness " which 
he desired in any union for his son. 

At this juncture Richard Mayor, of Hursley, 
appears on the scene. How he and Cromwell 
became acquainted is not clear ; perhaps Mayor 
had fought in the army and so formed a friend- 
ship with Cromwell; at any rate Mayor, in the 
opening weeks of 1648, informed Cromwell 
through a mutual friend that he was not averse 
to a marriage between his elder daughter 
Dorothy and Richard Cromwell. Fifteen months 
later that union became an accomplished fact. 

That so long an interval elapsed between the 
opening of the marriage negotiations and their 
completion must be laid to the charge of Mayor 
himself. Cromwell was agreeable to the match; 
the young people appear to have been genuinely 
in love with each other ; but the maiden's father 
proved a hard bargain-driver. Carlyle char- 

59 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

acterizes Mayor as '* a pious prudent man." 
He certainly was entitled to the second adjective. 
Indeed, if the testimony of another dweller at 
Hursley is to be credited, he had claims to be 
described in more reprehensible terms. This 
witness admits that Mayor was " very witty and 
thrifty," but then adds that he *' got more by 
oppressing his tenants than did all the lords 
(of the manor of Merdon) in sixty years before 
him." And in another place this local chronicler 
declares that when Cromwell became Protector 
of England Mayor took advantage of his high 
connection to *' usurp authority over his tenants 
at Hursley." 

Cromwell himself had ample experience of 
Mayor's thriftiness. Among the surviving letters 
of the Protector there are a round dozen in 
which the curious may trace the history of the 
negotiations for Richard Cromwell's marriage 
with Dorothy Mayor. Unfortunately none of 
Richard Mayor's epistles are in existence, but 
those from Cromwell's pen, written during the 
months when he was the leading spirit of mo- 
mentous events, show that Dorothy's father 
employed every possible effort to use the marriage 
of his daughter for his own monetary gain. 
Indeed, Mayor, the *' pious prudent man," 

60 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

proved so obstinate on matters of settlement that 
the negotiations were broken off and remained 
in abeyance for some nine months. 

Meanwhile events had happened which prob- 
ably appealed to the prudence if not to the piety 
of Richard Mayor. Cromwell had suppressed 
an insurrection in Wales, had defeated the 
Scottish Royalists at Preston, and Charles I 
was on the threshold of the scaffold. So the 
astute lord of the manor at Hursley enlisted the 
services of a Puritan preacher at Southampton, 
and through him contrived to reopen negotia- 
tions for the union of his daughter with Crom- 
well's heir. Cromwell himself was not unwilling. 
The Southampton preacher had adroitly en- 
larged on the '* piety " of the Mayor family, 
whether on his own initiative or at the suggestion 
of Richard Mayor himself does not appear. But 
that was the most effectual channel to Crom- 
well's heart, and the negotiations thus resumed, 
went forward as speedily as they could under all 
the circumstances, and on May Day, 1649, 
Richard Cromwell and Dorothy Mayor were 
wedded at Hursley. 

By the marriage contract the manor of Mer- 
don was to descend to the children of the young 
couple, and it did actually remain in the Crom- 

61 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

well family until 1718, when it was sold for 
thirty thousand pounds to the family whose 
descendants possess it to this day. In agreement 
with Richard Cromwell's own inclination for a 
country life, he and his wife settled at Hursley, 
living in the lodge of the manor house. On 
the testimony of his father's letters alone, and 
they are the letters of a partial and forbearing 
parent, Richard Cromwell was of an indolent 
disposition. An *' idle fellow," Carlyle calls him, 
one who could never relish soldiering in his 
father's army, who wished above all to *' retire 
to Arcadian felicity and wedded life in the 
country." 

Even when Cromwell had got his son happily 
wedded and established in " Arcadian felicity " 
at Hursley he had many anxious thoughts about 
his mental and spiritual welfare. " I have 
delivered my son to you," he writes to Mayor, 
" and I hope you will counsel him ; he will 
need it ; and indeed I believe he likes well what 
you say, and will be advised by you. I wish 
he may be serious ; the times require it." Sub- 
sequent letters from Cromwell return again and 
again to the same themes : " I have committed 
my son to you; pray give him advice. ... I 
would have him mind and understand business, 

62 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

read a little history, study the mathematics and 
cosmography." From the turmoil of his cam- 
paign in Ireland Cromwell asks for the prayers 
of Mayor and his family, adding, " As for Dick, 
I do not much expect it from him, knowing his 
idleness ; " and later he bids Dick himself 
*' Take heed of an unactive spirit ! Recreate 
yourself with Sir Walter Raleigh's History; 
it's a body of History ; and will add much more 
to your understanding than fragments of story." 
Although Cromwell had matters enough to 
occupy his attention, he often snatched a few 
minutes to indite an epistle to Hursley, but the 
lethargic and unoccupied Dick seldom took an 
answering pen in hand. Dorothy Cromwell 
seems to have caught the infection too, or why 
this rebuke of her father-in-law : *' They are 
at leisure to write often; but indeed they are 
both idle, and worthy of blame ? " 

Richard's mother visited him and his young 
wife at Hursley, but his illustrious father was 
never able to do so. Despite that fact the village 
stores its tradition of the Protector, who, accord- 
ing to that legend, " sunk his treasure at the 
bottom of Merdon Well, in an iron chest which 
must have been enchanted, for, on an endeavour 
to draw it up, no one was to speak. One work- 

63 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

man unfortunately said, ' Here it comes,' when 
it immediately sunk to the bottom and (this is 
quite true) never was seen ! " 

Notwithstanding his father's iterated and 
reiterated exhortations to study, to industry and 
to other commendable occupations of his time, 
Richard Cromwell allowed the days and weeks 
and months at Hursley to slip by unprofitably. 
He even plunged into debt, thereby earning the 
rebuke of his father, who exclaimed, " God 
forbid that his being my son should be his allow- 
ance to live not pleasingly to our heavenly 
Father." But Richard Cromwell was as he was ; 
he could not do otherwise than '* make pleasures 
the business of his life;" and thus, when his 
masterful father passed away, there was scarcely 
any man in all England so little jfit as he to take 
the Protector's place. He became, it is true, 
" the phantom king of half a year," but when the 
Rump Parliament demanded his resignation his 
essential weakness of character was revealed in 
his quiet acceptance of the situation. No doubt 
he was thankful to be able to retire to Hursley 
again, but the quietness of his retreat was soon 
broken by demands for the payment of his 
father's debts, and shortly after he sought safety 
in flight to the continent. His wife, however, 

64 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

continued to reside at Hursley until her death 
in 1675. 

Of Richard Cromwell's presence at Hursley 
there is only one surviving memorial. The lime- 
trees which make such a picturesque belt of 
verdure around the churchyard are said to have 
been planted by him. One other possible 
memento Carlyle dismisses thus : "In pulling 
down the old Hursley House, above a* century 
since, when the estate had passed into other 
hands, there was found in some crevice of the 
old walls a rusty lump of metal, evidently an 
antiquity; which was carried to the new pro- 
prietor at Winchester ; who sold it as ' a Roman 
weight,' for what it would bring. When scoured, 
it turned out, — or is said by vague Noble, 
quoting vague ' Vertue,' ' Hughes's Letters,' 
and ' Ant. Soc' (Antiquarian Society), to have 
turned out, — to be the Great Seal of the Com- 
monwealth. If the Antiquarians still have it, 
let them be chary of it." 

One hundred and seventy-six years after 
Richard Cromwell married Dorothy Mayor 
there came to Hursley as curate of the parish a 
young minister named John Keble. At that 
time his personal worth and unusual gifts were 
known to but a few ; to-day his saintly character 

65 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

and the fruits of his poetic genius are among the 
choicest treasures of the EngHsh Church. 

Keble's first sojourn at Hursley as a curate 
lasted rather less than a year. His acceptance 
of that position was due to the persuasion of the 
lord of the manor, Sir William Heathcote, 
who had been his pupil at Oxford. Hence his 
surroundings were wholly enjoyable. *' The 
society at Hursley itself, and its neighbourhood, 
and especially that which would, of course, 
gather from time to time at Hursley Park; the 
renewal of his familiar intercourse with his 
favourite old pupil ; the character of the country 
around him, dry and healthy, a pleasant inter- 
change of breezy down and picturesque wood- 
land, hill and valley, the New Forest, South- 
ampton, and the sea at a convenient distance " — 
such were his advantages. His friends soon 
found him out in this ideal retreat; he tried 
*' the coozie powers of the Hursley air " on them, 
and welcomed, among others, his college com- 
panion, Thomas Arnold, who was afterwards 
to win fame as the great schoolmaster of Rugby. 
But a death in Keble's family, which laid upon 
him, as he thought, the responsibility of brighten- 
ing his father's declining years with his com- 
panionship, made him resign his cure. 

66 



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GKAVES OF JOHN KEBLE AND HIS WIFE. 




HURSLEY CHURCH. 



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go 
go 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

Some ten years later the death of that greatly- 
loved father coincided with a vacancy in the 
Hursley living and opened the way for his return 
thither as vicar of the parish. This was in 
1836 and for thirty years thereafter Hursley 
was the home of Keble and the harvest-field of 
his labours. 

Nine years prior to his return to Hursley Keble 
had given " The Christian Year " to the world. 
In the annals of literature that book of sacred 
verses is, of course, his most abiding memorial, 
but in the peaceful village of his active ministry 
as a priest the church itself in its stones and 
mortar must always perpetuate his name. 

At the time he was appointed vicar here he 
found the church, erected in the eighteenth 
century, wholly unadapted for such ceremonials 
as should, in his opinion, characterize the services 
of the Church of England. For nine years he 
laboured on amid the depressing conditions of 
that barn-like building, and then he came to the 
conclusion that " the irreverence and other 
mischiefs caused by the present state of Hursley 
Church " left him no option save to attempt the 
entire rebuilding of the edifice. 

Such an undertaking, however, seemed likely 
to prove too heavy a burden for the people of a 

67 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

poor rural parish. The original estimate for 
the work Keble thought necessary amounted to 
three thousand three hundred and eighty 
pounds, and there were only two or three 
among the parishioners whose means would 
allow them to contribute any material help in 
raising that sum. Having surveyed all the 
conditions, the vicar came to the resolve to meet 
himself the entire expense of the rebuilding, and 
his next step was to consider how he could most 
easily raise the necessary sum. 

Keble's first thought was to publish his " Lyra 
Innocentium " in the interests of his building- 
fund, but when he discovered that such a 
scheme was not quite so feasible as he imagined, 
he turned for help to " The Christian Year." 
That volume had been enormously successful. 
In little more than twenty years no fewer than 
forty-three editions had been called for, repre- 
senting more than a hundred thousand copies. 
Throughout the author's life, the sale of the 
volume never flagged; and during the nine 
months that succeeded his death, seven editions 
of eleven thousand copies were sold. It is 
obvious, then, that in the copyright of " The 
Christian Year " Keble possessed a valuable 
asset, and that asset he expressed his willingness 

68 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

to relinquish in return for such a sum as would 
enable him to pay for the rebuilding of Hursley 
Church. 

At this juncture three of his friends inter- 
vened. They very stoutly opposed the idea that 
Keble should sell his copyright. For one thing, 
they did not think any publisher would be pre- 
pared to offer a full equivalent; and they were 
convinced that " The Christian Year " was 
exactly the kind of work which ought to remain 
as long as possible in the author's own hands, 
and under his control. In order, then, to save 
Keble from making this sacrifice, his friends 
proposed to supply him with money as he should 
want it for the rebuilding of the church, their 
only condition being that the copyright of the 
book should in the meantime be regarded as 
their property as security. Even this arrange- 
ment did not for a moment involve Keble in 
parting with his copyright legally, for his friends 
did not dream of asking for any formal agreement 
or legal assignment of the work. It was merely 
an understanding between four high-minded 
men, one of whom undertook the business part 
of arranging the terms for each edition of the 
book as it was called for, and receiving the price. 
" No doubt," wrote one who was a party to 

69 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

this honourable transaction, *' this was a con- 
venience to Keble, and set his mind free from all 
anxiety; but it was no inconvenience to us, nor 
ultimate loss. Keble sacrificed for the time the 
income he had used to derive from this source, 
but he never lost the ownership of the book; 




HURSLEY VICAKAGE 



and the beneficial property returned to him 
when the account was cleared." 

Fortunate, indeed, was it for the Hursley vicar 
that such an arrangement was made. The 
cost of rebuilding greatly exceeded the original 
estimate. Instead of three thousand three hun- 
dred and eighty pounds, the bill totalled up to 
six thousand pounds, and if the copyright of *' The 

70 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

Christian Year" had been disposed of on the basis 
of the smaller sum, there would have been a 
heavy deficit to meet. Instead, as has been 
shown, the three friends continued to advance 
funds as they were called for, and were able 
to repay themselves from the sales of the book. 
Thus Hursley Church, from its foundation to 
its vane, is the honourable memorial of John 
Keble. 

At the edge of the churchyard, from which it 
is separated by a low wall, stands the vicarage 
which was Keble 's happy home for thirty years. 
Many famous men and women have passed 
within its doors, but the most memorable meeting 
of which these walls have been the witness took 
place less than five months before Keble's death. 
In his young manhood E. B. Pusey and John 
Henry Newman had been numbered among his 
most intimate friends. They had laboured to- 
gether zealously at the dawn of the High Church 
movement. Then followed the parting of the 
ways. Newman found that he could not remain 
in the English Church, and the letter in which 
he announced his decision to enter the Church of 
Rome came to Keble at Hursley, to be taken by 
him for opening and sad perusal in a quiet 
deserted chalk-pit of his parish. For years 

71 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

thereafter the three never met, and then, on the 
eve of Keble's death, a strange chance brought 
them together under his roof at Hursley. 

Newman himself gives the following tender 
account of that memorable meeting. " Keble 
was at his door speaking to a friend. He did 
not know me, and asked my name. What was 
more wonderful, since I had purposely come to 
his house, I did not know him, and I feared to 
ask who it was. I gave him my card without 
speaking. When at length we found out each 
other, he said, with that tender flurry of manner 
which I recollected so well, that his wife had been 
seized with an attack of her complaint that 
morning, and that he could not receive me as 
he should wish to do; nor, indeed, had he 
expected me ; for * Pusey,' he whispered, ' is 
in the house, as you are aware.' Then he 
brought me into his study, and embraced me 
most affectionately, and said he would go and 
prepare Pusey, and send him to me. I got there 
in the forenoon, and remained with him four 
or five hours, dining at one or two. He was in 
and out of the room all the time I was with him, 
attending to his wife, and I was left with Pusey. 
I recollect very little of the conversation that 
passed at dinner. Pusey was full of the question 

72 



JOHN KEBLE'S HURSLEY 

of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, and Keble 
expressed his joy that it was a common cause, 
in which I could not substantially differ from 
them; and he caught at such words of mine 
as seemed to show agreement. . . . Just before 
my time for going, Pusey went to read the eve- 
ning service in church, and I was alone in the 
open air with Keble by himself. We walked a 
little way, and stood looking in silence at the 
church and churchyard, so beautiful and calm. 
Then he began to converse with me in more than 
his old tone of intimacy, as if we had never 
parted; and soon I was obliged to go." 

But a few months later, as has been said, Keble 
was laid to rest in that churchyard " so beautiful 
and calm." It was not in this picturesque 
vicarage that he died, but in apartments at 
Bournemouth, whither he had gone for the sake 
of his wife's health. His own illness lasted but 
a week, and was brought on by rising too early, 
by taking a cold instead of a warm bath, and 
then, without having tasted food, standing by 
his wife's bed to read the lessons for the day 
until he collapsed in a dead faint. When he 
had passed away, his dying widow bade her 
friends assemble in her own room, and then, 
taking a copy of " The Christian Year," and 

73 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

turning to the stanzas for Good Friday, she told 
them how assuredly she felt that her husband's 
last aspiration had been — 

" O call Thy wanderer home; 
To that dear home, safe in Thy wounded side. 
Where only broken hearts their sin and shame may hide." 

Six weeks after Mrs. Keble herself passed 
away, and was laid in the grave which nestles 
closely beside that of her husband. Than these 
two graves there are few which speak more 
eloquently of ideal wedded love. 



74 



V 
OATLANDS PARK 



OATLANDS PARK 

HARDLY in all England are there fifty 
acres which can hope to compete in 
varied interest with those which com- 
prise the famous Oatlands Park in Surrey. 
Here some of the most illustrious personages of 
the Royal House of England have had a home ; 
here the most notable of the ladies who have 
borne the title of the Duchess of York nursed 
the sombre thought of a blighted life ; here the 
Princess Charlotte passed that honeymoon which 
was by such a short space removed from the 
tomb; here may be found the most wonderful 
grotto in England; here the most picturesque 
dogs' cemetery known to the history of canine 
sepulture; and here men whose names are 
written high on the scroll of literary fame have 
committed to paper some of their most deathless 
work. 

Oatlands, as hinted above, has had many 
Royal owners. The first to cast envious eyes on 
these richly-wooded glades was the masterful 

77 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Henry VIII, and in his days a king had onJy to 
hint a desire to break the tenth commandment 
and that which he coveted was his. Oatlands, 
the much-married Henry thought, would make 
an admirable addition to the adjacent Chace of 
Hampton, and the rightful owner promptly 
handed over the title-deeds in favour of another 
stretch of land in a less enviable neighbourhood. 

Next in ownership of Oatlands came " Good 
Queen Bess," who is credited with having 
practised the masculine art of crossbow shooting 
in these meadows, and who certainly kept 
court here on many occasions. The Queen of 
Charles I followed, and then came Anne of 
Denmark, the Duke of Newcastle, and, lastly, 
the Duke of York, the second son of George III. 
The two dukes, as we shall see, are still linked 
with the history of Oatlands Park. 

A Royal palace of goodly area was once 
embowered amid these lusty trees. It has 
vanished, even to the last stone, and the only 
record left of its existence is one of those quaint, 
perspective-defying plans upon which the 
draughtsmen of the olden time lavished so 
much painful labour. Even of the building first 
inhabited by the Duke of York nothing remains, 
a fire having swept it away a few years after the 

78 



[Bi>?<)(>?<3c>?<3t>?<3c>?<ai>?<o[>?<]c>?<3c>?<ac>?<ai>?<oc^^^ 








CEDARS OF LEBANON, OATLANDS. 



[gCg0(>^<3C>^<3C>^<](>^<](>^<3[^<3(>^<3(>^<3C>^<3C>^<3D^^ 



OATLANDS PARK 



property came into his possession. Part of the 
new mansion he built in its place still survives 
at the rear of the present structure, and here may 
yet be seen and dwelt in the rooms occupied by 
the Princess Charlotte. 

It was, as has 
been noted, as a 
bride on her hon- 
eymoon that the 
Princess Charlotte, 
in 1816, came to 
Oatlands. As the 
idol of the nation 
and the heir to the 
English throne her 
future career 
promised nothing ^^ 
but happiness. 
According to the 

testimony of the Comtesse de Boigne, who 
met her on intimate terms on several occa- 
sions, the Princess possessed a character of 
marked individuality. She affected the brusque 
manners attributed to Queen Elizabeth, even 
to the adoption of that monarch's oaths, and 
would probably have caused some consternation 
among the ministers of the English government 

79 




PRINCE HENRY OF OATLANDS 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

had she succeeded to the throne. She declared 
that she would not and could not rule over Eng- 
land except on the condition that her husband 
should reign with her. " He shall be King or 
I never will be Queen." Of her personal appear- 
ance the Comtesse gives this picture : *' Of her 
figure I can say nothing. All that could be seen 
was that she was tall and strongly made. Her hair 
was fair almost to the point of whiteness, and 
her eyes were porcelain blue; eyelashes and 
eyebrows were invisible, and her complexion 
was uniformly white, without colour. The reader 
may cry, ' What insipidity ! It must have been 
a very inexpressive face.' Nothing of the kind. 
I have rarely observed a face of greater alertness 
and mobility ; her look was most expressive." 

Most of the figures who loom large in the 
court history of George IV have slept under this 
roof and disported themselves on these lawns. 
Of course the King's brother, Thackeray's 
" big, burly, loud, jolly, cursing, courageous " 
Duke of York, was often here. But, though 
owner of Oatlands, he seems, when his affection 
for the Duchess cooled, to have used the place 
merely and mainly as a week-end resort. All 
that even Sir Walter Scott could say, despite 
that purblind loyalty which made him so val- 

80 



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OLD PORTION OF OATIANDS MANSION. 




THE dogs' CEMETEKY, OATLANDS. 



go 

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go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
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go 
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go 
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OATLANDS PARK 

iant a champion of the worthless Regent, was 
that the Duke of York Hved with his Duchess 
" on terms of decency, but not of affection." 

He is not a very clearly-defined figure on the 
page of history, that same Duke of York, yet 
there is one story told of him which leaves a 
pleasant memory. Mounting his horse one 
morning at the door of Oatlands he saw a poorly- 
clad woman slowly wending her way down the 
avenue. " Who is that "^ " he demanded of a 
servant near by. " Nobody, your Royal High- 
ness, but a soldier's wife a-begging." " And 
pray, sir," rejoined the Duke, '* what is your 
mistress ^ " 

Beau Brummel, too, *' favourite, rival, enemy, 
superior " of George IV, as Thackeray terms 
him, was often a guest at Oatlands. The 
Duchess had a great liking for the poor Beau, 
and he diplomatically cultivated her regard by 
an occasional present of a dog, the surest way 
to that lonely woman's heart. 

Hither also often came Charles Greville, the 
industrious compiler of those fascinating *' Mem- 
oirs ; " and Oatlands and its strange medley 
of life in the early years of the last century 
may be repictured from his pages. The week- 
end parties were often large, and one of the 

81 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

principal amusements of the guests was to sit 
up playing whist till four o'clock in the morning. 
*' On Sundays," he continues, " we amused our- 
selves with eating fruit in the garden, and shoot- 
ing at a mark with pistols, and playing with 
the monkeys. I bathed in the cold bath in the 
grotto, which is as clear as crystal and as cold as 
ice. Oatlands is the worst managed establish- 
ment in England : there are a great many 
servants, and nobody waits on you ; a vast 
number of horses, and none to ride or drive." 

On another visit Greville set himself the task 
of painting his hostess. " The Duchess," he 
noted in that capacious diary of his, ** seldom 
goes to bed, or, if she does, only for an hour or 
two ; she sleeps dressed upon a couch, sometimes 
in one room, sometimes in another. She fre- 
quently walks out very late at nights, or rather 
early in the morning, and she always sleeps with 
open windows. She dresses and breakfasts at 
three o'clock, afterwards walks out with all her 
dogs, and seldom appears before dinner-time. 
At night, when she cannot sleep, she has women 
to read to her. The Duchess of York is clever 
and well informed ; she likes society, and dislikes 
all form and ceremony ; but in the midst of the 
most familiar intercourse she always preserves 

82 



OATLANDS PARK 

a certain dignity of manner. Those who are 
in the habit of going to Oatlands are perfectly 
at their ease with her, and talk with as much 
freedom as they would to any other woman, but 
always with great respect. Her mind is not 
perhaps the most delicate ; she shows no dislike 
to coarseness of sentiment or language, and I 
have often seen her very much amused with 
jokes, stories, and allusions which would shock 
a very nice person. But her own conversation is 
never polluted with anything the least indelicate 
or unbecoming. She is very sensible to little 
attentions, and is annoyed if anybody appears 
to keep aloof from her or to shun conversing with 
her. Her dogs are her greatest interest and 
amusement, and she has at least forty of various 
kinds. She is delighted when anybody gives her 
a dog, or a monkey, or a parrot, of all of which 
she has vast numbers ; it is impossible to offend 
or annoy her more than by ill-using any of her 
dogs, and if she were to see anybody beat or 
kick any one of them she would never forgive 
it. 

Not often did the foppish Regent darken the 
doors of his sister-in-law at Oatlands. He took 
no pains, " first gentleman of Europe," though 
his flatterers termed him, to conceal his dislike 

83 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

of his brother's choice, and the Duchess, on her 
part, returned the sentiment with interest. That, 
at any rate, is one fact to be placed to her 
credit. 

But though the Regent was not fond of the 
mistress of Oatlands, the grotto in her grounds, 
which was erected by the Duke of Newcastle at 
a cost of forty thousand pounds, appealed to his 
taste with irresistible force. It would, to a man 
who was the cause of so many countless thousands 
being spent on his gaudy Pavilion at Brighton. 
One of the chambers in this Oatlands grotto was 
once put by the Regent to a notable use. Here, in 
the apartment now known as the Duchess' 
boudoir, he gave a lavish supper to the Emperor 
of Russia, the King of Prussia, and other 
princely warriors, after the battle of Waterloo, 
and in celebration of that memorable victory. 
In its present carpetless and rather earthy con- 
dition, this unique chamber hardly rises to the 
reputation which its primary cost creates in 
in the mind; but it is easy to imagine what a 
transformation it might undergo if it were placed 
for a few hours in the hands of an upholsterer 
with artistic tastes. 

At first sight it seems hardly credible that the 
Duke of Newcastle can have squandered forty 

84 



OATLANDS PARK 

thousand pounds on the Oatlands grotto, even al- 
though it did give occupation to three builders for 
twenty years. There are, however, more apart- 
ments in this amorphous structure than a casual 
inspection would lead one to imagine. Beneath the 
apartment in which the Regent gave his Waterloo 
supper is a chamber known as the Duchess of 
York's bath-room, where Charles Greville had 
his ice-cold tub, and where the Duchess was 
wont to superintend the ablutions of those dogs 
who lie so quietly now in the graveyard outside. 
A winding passage leads from one corner of the 
bath-room to the gaming-saloon, where the 
visitor stumbles across the one association of the 
Duke of York with the grotto. It is not an asso- 
ciation to his honour. In this hidden chamber, 
where the light of the outer world struggles 
vainly with the inner darkness, where the per- 
fumes of flowers and the songs of birds do not 
penetrate, the Duke of York squandered his 
inheritance on the gambler's table. A few yards 
away there is a cave-like chamber such as might 
be the abode of genii able to restore the lost gold 
for the recompense of a human soul. As the 
visitor reaches this limit of his quest, he realizes 
that no artist in weird sensations could have 
devised a more fitting climax. 

85 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 



For all the associations of the Regent's Water- 
loo supper, and the gambling revelry of the Duke 
of York, it is the presence of the Duchess of 
York and her dumb companions which most 
dominates this peaceful grotto now. She, poor 

soul, the " small, 
fair lady " whom 
the Comtesse de 
Boigne always 
remembered, has 
been dead these 
eighty years, and 
lies in the church- 
yard yonder under 
a massive Chantry 
monument. On 
the village green 
close by stands a 
lofty column in- 
scribed with her virtues, a record which only 
a stray passer-by stops now and then to read. 
And her dogs sleep on, too, beneath the tiny 
tombstones which stud the grass around the 
grotto. 

Perhaps it is easy to read what the world calls 
eccentricity into that character-sketch of the 
Duchess which Greville gives, and especially into 

86 




THE DUCHESS OF YORK 



OATLANDS PARK 

that wholesale devotion to the canine race of which 
he speaks. But would it not be wiser to pause 
and consider the excuses there may have been 
in this case ? A native of another land — the 
Duchess was born Princess Royal of Prussia — 
mated to a husband whose intrigues with a 
mistress were the talk of the town and the burden 
of debate in the House of Commons ; condemned 
to pass countless solitary hours in her Surrey 
home; it is hardly surprising that she should 
turn for consolation elsewhere. And, in that 
event, what wiser choice could she have made for 
companionship than that of 

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. 
The first to welcome, foremost to defend, 
Whose honest heart is still his master's own. 
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone ? 

As these faithful companions of the solitary 
woman passed away one by one they were 
honoured with burial and headstone in that 
sheltered little dell which dips down behind the 
Oatlands grotto. It is a resting-place which 
might make man himself *' half in love with 
easeful death." Only two of the tombstones 
bear anything in the nature of an epitaph; the 
rest are simply inscribed with a name. The 

87 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

longest epitaph is that " To the Memory of 
JuHa," which reads thus : 

Here Julia rests, and here each day 

Her mistress strews her grave wath flowers, 
Mourning her death, whose frolic play 

Enlivened oft the lonesome hours. 
From Denmark did her race descend, 

Beauteous her form and mild her spirit; 
Companion gay, and faithful friend — 

May ye who read have half her merit. 

Among the most notable associations which 
Oatlands has gathered to itself in years nearer our 
own day must be recorded the facts that here Mot- 
ley laboured at certain parts of his " Dutch Re- 
public," and that here Zola found a secure hiding- 
place when France was in hue and cry after the 
writer of J'accuse. Motley has not recorded his 
opinion of the Oatlands grotto and dogs' cemetery, 
but Zola has. The grotto had no attractions for 
him, but he often found his way to the little 
cemetery at its side. It reminded him of the 
green islet in the Seine at Medan, where he 
buried his own dumb companions, and of the 
faithful dog who had pined and died because he 
heard his master's footsteps no more. 



88 



VI 
POETS' CORNER 



POETS' CORNER 

FROM Chaucer to Tennyson ! Between 
those two names, separated by five 
hundred years, lies the splendid story of 
English literature as it is summed up in the 
Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. What a 
shrine for the devout literary pilgrim ! Here 
he may stand beside the dust of that poet who 
ushered in the dawn of English literature, and 
while he does so his feet are above the grave of 
him who was its latter-day glory. 

Between these two, what suns and stars have 
swum into the firmament of English verse and 
prose ! Not all have had their setting in this 
proud minster; the greatest of the band sleeps 
beside his own Avon, and others of the mighty 
dead are scattered here and there not only over 
the fair face of that land whose inner life they 
interpreted but also in the soil of the great 
Republic of the West. Here, however, are laid 
to rest, or have memorial, the chief of those 
who have raised the stately fane of English 

91 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

literature; here, carved in stone, are the names 
of those who have left their impress most deeply 
upon the English-speaking race. 

Those who laid Chaucer in his grave in this 
south transept of the Abbey were the true though 
unconscious founders of the Poets' Corner. 
They buried wiser than they knew. Standing, 
as he does, the earliest commanding figure in 
English literature, how seemly it was that 
Chaucer should be the first to consecrate this 
part of the national Valhalla as the resting place 
of the poets. 

Yet it appears to have been merely an accident 
which led to the burial within these walls of him 
who told the Canterbury Tales. In other words, 
it was not because he was a poet that Chaucer 
found his resting place beside the dust of kings, 
but because, for a brief season, he was one of 
the ofiicials of the Abbey. Although he had 
enjoyed the favour of three Kings, although John 
of Gaunt had been his constant patron, although 
he had been entrusted with several important 
diplomatic missions, Chaucer's old age was 
overshadowed by poverty. It was at that 
period of his life that he held for a short time 
the office of clerk of the works at Westminster, 
and it is to that fact, and also to his having 

92 



POETS' CORNER 

breathed his last in an old house in the monas- 
tery garden, that his interment within the Abbey- 
is to be attributed. The men of those times 
could not have been fully conscious of the great- 
ness of him who had passed away. For a century 
and a half Chaucer's only memorial was a rude 
slab of lead inscribed with his name ; it was not 
until 1555 that Nicholas Brigham, a brother of 
the muse, caused the present tomb and canopy 
to be placed over that honoured dust. Some three 
hundred years later, that is in 1868, Dr. Rogers 
had the window above the monument filled with 
stained glass representing scenes from the poet's 
life and works. So through long generations 
does Chaucer evoke the heart-love of his country- 
men. 

" In the poetical quarter," wrote Addison in 
his famous essay on the Abbey, " I found that 
there were poets who had no monuments, and 
monuments which had no poets." Shakespeare 
is an example of the last statement ; Beaumont 
of the first — for he lies under a nameless stone. 
But from Shakespeare's time onwards, monu- 
ment or no monument, it came to be recognized 
that in this south transept was the fitting sep- 
ulchre of the nation's chief singers, and if 
circumstances did not always allow of their 

93 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

actual burial here, it was still possible to record 
their fame by storied urn or sculptured bust. 
And so we have the glorious Poets' Corner of 
to-day. It is true there are some names missing 
from the scroll of fame kept within this narrow 
space, and the absence of several of those names 
may give the pilgrim pause. There is Pope, for 
example — why has he no memorial here ? 
Because he desired none. It was his wish to 
be buried by the side of his mother in Twicken- 
ham Church, and his epitaph in that building, 
written by himself, records that it is " For 
one that would not be buried in Westminster 
Abbey." But the absentees are not numerous, 
and he who is well read in all the verse sug- 
gested by the names on these walls is to be 
envied his knowledge of English poetry. 

As in the case of Chaucer, the accident that 
death overtook Spenser in the vicinity of the 
Abbey rather than in his Irish home was no 
doubt the chief cause why the author of " The 
Faerie Queene " was laid to rest close beside the 
chronicler of '* The Canterbury Tales." Spenser 
had come to London as the bearer of an official 
dispatch from Ireland, and made his head- 
quarters at a tavern in King Street, Westminster, 
the inns of which were the usual resort of messen- 

94 



Sc>?<)c>?<)[>?<)[>?<at>?<](>?<]c>?<)(>?<)c>?<)[>?<][>?<)[>?<3^^^ 







«) 



[gc>iOI>i<lC>i<ll>i<]t>i<Ita<l[>^<l[>i<l[>i<!I>i<ICS3C>i<lt>i<l(>i<3[>i<3[>i<l^^^ 



POETS' CORNER 

gers to the Court. Here it was appointed he 
should die, not in poverty as Ben Jonson would 
have us believe, but outworn by the burden 
of those distressing experiences which had over- 
whelmed him in his Irish home. Conscious of 
his approaching end, so the legend runs, Spenser 
asked that his resting place might be near the 
dust of Chaucer; and the original inscription 
on his monument, obliterated many years 
ago, definitely noted that his sepulture in that 
spot was due to the proximity of Chaucer's 
grave. 

It was at the charge of the Earl of Essex that 
Spenser was buried, and tradition tells how he 
was followed to his tomb by a great company of 
poets, who cast their elegies on his coffin and 
the pens with which they had been written. 
Jonson, and Beaumont, and Fletcher, and most 
likely Shakespeare too, were of the band. Queen 
Elizabeth gave orders for the erection of a 
costly tomb for the poet who had shed such 
lustre over her own person and reign, but 
official jealousy and *' curst avarice " robbed 
** our Colin " of that monument. Twenty years 
later, however, the Duchess of Dorset supplied 
the omission, and when that memorial fell into 
decay a century and a half later the poet Mason 

95 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

raised a subscription which resulted in the 
erection of the present monument. 

Some fifteen years after he had followed 
Spenser to his grave Francis Beaumont was laid 
to his too-early rest in this sacred spot. His dust 
lies under a nameless stone, for no brother of 
the muse or noble patron thought fit to raise a 
memorial to his fame. Bishop Corbet, however, 
composed an epitaph to his memory, the moral 
of which will be missed unless it is remembered 
that Beaumont was not thirty years old when he 
died. 

He that hath such acuteness and such wit 
As would ask ten good heads to husband it : — 
He that can write so well that no man dare 
Refuse it for the best, — let him beware ! 
Beaumont is dead ! by whose sole death appears 
Wit's a disease consumes men in few years ! 

Goldsmith, it will be remembered, makes his 
intelligent Chinaman exclaim, while on a tour 
of the Poets' Corner, " Drayton ! I never heard 
of him before." Yet when, in 1631, the author 
of " The Poly-Olbion " joined Chaucer and 
Spenser and Beaumont he was held in as high 
repute as either of the three. Fuller coupled 
Michael Drayton with Spenser and described the 
two as '* a pair of royal poets, enough almost 

96 



POETS' CORNER 

to make passengers' feet to move metrically, 
who go over the place where so much poetical 
dust is interred." Another eulogist declared 
that the name of Drayton alone was sufficient 
to give England poetical equality with the land 
of Dante and Petrarch ! 

Probably " The Poly-Olbion " was mainly 
accountable for Drayton's remarkable contem- 
porary fame. Certainly it was an amazing under- 
taking for a writer to narrate in verse those 
facts and curiosities of geographical antiquities 
which are now presented more suitably in prose. 
He took for his theme the rivers, mountains, 
forests and other parts of Great Britain, and 
devoted such immense labour to the acquisition 
of his materials that his poem is still a mine of 
reliable information. A part of his reward was 
to be eulogized in such strains as these : 

Drayton, sweet ancient Bard, his Albion sung. 
With their own praise her echoing Valleys rung; 
His bounding Muse o'er ev'ry mountain rode. 
And ev'ry river warbled where he flow'd. 

How confident his contemporaries were of his 
abiding fame is evident from the glowing epitaph 
on his tomb : 

Do, pious marble, let thy readers know 
What they and what their children owe 

97 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

To Drayton's name, whose sacred dust 
We recommend unto thy trust. 
Protect his memory and preserve his story; 
Remain a lasting monument of his glory. 
And when thy ruins shall disclaim 
To be the treasurer of his name, 
His name, that cannot fade, shall be 
An everlasting monument to thee. 



Yet, such are the vicissitudes of Hterary judg- 
ment, Drayton's works were forgotten *' before 
his monument is worn out," and many a modern 
visitor to Poets' Corner may excusably repeat 
the exclamation of Goldsmith's Chinaman. 

Far otherwise is it with Ben Jonson, whose 
bust, had it life, could shake hands with that of 
the forgotten Drayton. But the dust of the 
two poets is in no danger of mingling, for 
Jonson was buried not in Poets' Corner but in 
the north aisle of the nave. There, in one of 
of his meditative wanderings, Hawthorne sud- 
denly found it. " Lingering through one of the 
aisles," he writes, " I happened to look down, 
and found my foot upon a stone inscribed with 
this familiar exclamation, ' O rare Ben Jonson ! ' 
and remembered the story of stout old Ben's 
burial in that spot, standing upright — not, I 
presume, on account of any unseemly reluctance 

98 



POETS' CORNER 

on his part to lie down in the dust, like other men, 
but because standing-room was all that could 
reasonably be demanded for a poet among the 
slumberous notabilities of his age. It made me 
weary to think of it ! — such a prodigious length 
of time to keep one's feet ! — apart from the 
honour of the thing, it would certainly have been 
better for Ben to stretch himself at ease in 
some country churchyard." 

Several stories are told to account for Jonson 
being buried in such an unusual position. One 
credits the dramatist with asking a favour of 
Charles I. " What is it ? " demanded the 
King. " Eighteen inches of square ground," 
rejoined Jonson, '* Where ? " asked the King. 
" In Westminster Abbey." Another version 
asserts that the poet wished to be so buried 
that he might be in readiness for the Resurrec- 
tion ; and a third relates a conversation between 
Jonson and the Dean of the Abbey, in which, 
on being rallied by the Dean about his being 
buried in Poets' Corner, Jonson said he was too 
poor to purchase a resting place there. *' No, 
sir," said the poet, " six feet long by two feet 
wide is too much for me : two feet by two will 
do for all I want." To which the Dean rejoined, 
" You shall have it." 

: .'. 99 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Whatever the cause, it is indisputable that 
Jonson was buried in an upright position. When 
the ground next his grave was opened in 1849 
to prepare for another burial, the clerk of the 
works " saw the two leg-bones of Jonson, fixed 
bolt upright in the sand, as though the body had 
been buried in an upright position ; and the 
skull came rolling down among the sand, from 
a position above the leg-bones, to the bottom 
of the newly-made grave. There was still hair 
upon it, and it was of a red colour." 

Less enduring than the fame of Jonson is that 
of Abraham Cowley, though he, like Drayton, 
went to his grave amid the high plaudits of his 
own age. Milton is said to have bracketed 
Cowley with Shakespeare and Spenser as the 
three greatest poets of England; even the dis- 
solute Charles II when informed of his death 
said he *' had not left a better man in England ; " 
and his epitaph, after comparing the poet with 
Pindar, Virgil and Horace, attributed the im- 
munity of the Abbey from the great Fire of 
London to the fact that it contained Cowley's 
grave. Thus : 



That sacrilegious fire (which did last year 
Level those piles which Piety did rear) 

100 



POETS' CORNER 

Dreaded near that majestic church to fly, 
Where English Kings and English poets lie. 
It at an awful distance did expire, 
Such pow'r had sacred ashes o'er that fire; 
Such as it durst not near that structure come 
Which fate had order'd to be Cowley's tomb; 
And 'twill be still preserved, by being so, 
From what the rage of future flames can do. 
Material fire dares not that place infest. 
Where he who had immortal flame does rest. 
There let his urn remain, for it was fit 
Among our Kings to lay the King of Wit. 



As was the case with several of his predeces- 
sors, " glorious John Dryden " passed from a 
death-bed of poverty to the companionship of 
kings. Elaborate preparations had been made 
for his funeral by the Dean, who had " the 
Abbey lighted, the ground opened, the choir 
attending, an anthem ready set, and himself 
waiting." But there was no corpse. An in- 
famous prank by the son of Lord Jeffries was 
responsible for this untoward incident, which 
was extenuated by the author on the plea that 
he did it to make the funeral more splen- 
did ! 

So empty was Dryden's purse when he died 
that it became necessary to raise a fund to pay 
for his obsequies, but that service was readily 

101 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

undertaken, and twelve days after the poet's 
death his body was taken first to the College of 
Physicians, where it was honoured by a Latin 
eulogy, and then to the ancient Abbey, whither 
it was kept company by " an abundance of the 
quality, in their coaches and six horses," who, 
to the accompaniment of funeral music, chanted 
the Ode of Horace: Exegi monumentum aere 
perennius. 

Something of the perplexity which had dis- 
tressed Dryden in his choice of a religion per- 
turbed his eulogists in deciding upon his epitaph. 
Pope and Atterbury divided the labour between 
them, their efforts being devoted to discovering 
the most suitable inscription for the monument 
which Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, under- 
took to erect. Atterbury offered a Latin epitaph, 
but varied it with the following lines : 

This Sheffield rais'd to Dryden's ashes just. 
Here fixed his name, and there his laurel'd bust; 
What else the Muse in marble might express. 
Is known already; praise would make him less. 

Pope, however, was able to improve upon 
Atterbury 's effort in the following couplet : 

This Sheffield raised: the sacred dust below 

Was Dryden's once — the rest who does not know ? 

102 



POETS' CORNER 

Even that brief encomium, however, eventually 
gave place to the present simple inscription. 

How truly the Abbey is the " temple of 
reconciliation and peace " is not alone illustrated 
by the close proximity of the dust of Queen Eliza- 
beth and Mary Queen of Scots, but also by the 
fact that Dryden's bust looks across to that of 
his one-time rival, Thomas Shadwell, the poet 
of whom he wrote: 

Others to some faint meaning make pretence. 
But Shadwell never deviates into sense. 

Shadwell represents those monuments which 
have no poets, for he was not buried in the 
Abbey. 

Could Milton revisit the earth with his prin- 
ciples unchanged he would probably be sur- 
prised to find himself commemorated in a 
building so linked with the traditions of royalty. 
His body was not buried here, it is true, and the 
author of " Paradise Lost " had been in his 
grave more than sixty years before the growth 
of his fame and the decay of prejudice made it 
possible for his medallion to find a place on 
these walls. Some thirty years earlier an inno- 
cent effort to introduce Milton's name in an 
inscription to another poet prompted a royalist 

103 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Dean of the time to exercise his authority in 
erasing the obnoxious name. But Addison 
opened the eyes of England to the superb genius 
of Milton, and such was the change of opinion, 
as Dr. Gregory told Dr. Johnson, that he had 
*' seen erected in the church a bust of the man 
whose name I once knew considered as a pollu- 
tion of its walls." 

Many poets besides Milton have had to wait 
long years for recognition in Poets' Corner. 
There was Samuel Butler, for example, the 
author of '* Hudibras," who, buried elsewhere, 
had no memorial here until half a century after 
his death; and Coleridge, whose bust was the 
gift of an American admirer, Dr. Mercer, fifty 
years after the poet was buried at Highgate; 
and Addison, who had no monument in Poets' 
Corner until ninety years after he had passed 
away. 

Varied as are the conceits, couched in sonorous 
Latin or quaint English, which adorn some of 
these memorials, the most curious and the best- 
known epitaph is to be found on the tomb of 
John Gay, whose " Fables " and " The Beggar's 
Opera " still keep his memory alive. " If a 
stone shall mark the place of my grave," he 
wrote to Pope, " see these words put upon it: 

104 



POETS' CORNER 

" ' Life is a jest, and all things show it; 
I thought so once, but now I know it.' " 

Pope saw that his friend's wish was respected, 
but he added an epitaph of his own, perhaps 
the most affectionate and sincere of all his 
posthumous eulogies : 

Of manners gentle, of affections mild; 
In wit, a man ; simplicity, a child : 
With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, 
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age: 
Above temptation, in a low estate, 
And uncorrupted, ev'n among the great: 
A safe companion, and an easy friend, 
Unblam'd thro' hfe, lamented in thy end. 
These are thy honours ! not that here thy bust 
Is mix'd with heroes, or with Kings thy dust; 
But that the worthy and the good shall say, 
Striking their pensive bosoms — Here Ues Gay. 

Although the Abbey is richly sown with the 
dust of Kings and Queens, although here rest 
many famous statesmen of high renown, although 
this is the sepulchre of illustrious warriors, of 
great nobles, of immortal musicians, of men 
and women who have won fame which will 
never die, there is no part of the sacred building 
which appeals so tenderly to the heart of the 

105 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

pilgrim as Poets' Corner. Herein is the reward 
of him who devotes himself to singing a nation's 
songs, to writing that " universal language 
which the heart holds with nature and itself." 
He may not win a great success in life, he may 
even feed the flame of his genius at the expense 
of the body in which it has a being. Like 
Chaucer, and Spenser, and too many others, 
he may pass to his grave in poverty or sorrow. 
But the crown is his at last — the crown of a 
nation's love. " Notwithstanding the simplicity 
of these memorials," wrote Washington Irving, 
" I have always observed that the visitors to the 
Abbey remained the longest about them. A 
kinder and fonder feeling takes the place of that 
cold curiosity or vague admiration with which 
they gaze upon the monuments of the great and 
heroic." 

Hawthorne had the same feeling. " It seemed 
^ to me," he reflected, " that I had always been 
familiar with the spot. Enjoying a humble 
intimacy — and how much of my life had else 
been a dreary solitude ! — with many of its 
inhabitants, I could not feel myself a stranger 
there. It was delightful to be among them. 
There was a genial awe, mingled with a sense of 
kind and friendly presences about me; and I 

106 



POETS' CORNER 

was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them 
there together, in fit companionship, mutually 
recognized and duly honoured, all reconciled now, 
whatever distant generations, whatever personal 
hostility or other miserable impediment, had 
divided them asunder while they lived. I have 
never felt a similar interest in any other tomb- 
stones, nor have I ever been deeply moved by 
the imaginary presence of other famous dead 
people. A poet's ghost is the only one that sur- 
vives for his fellow-mortals, after his bones are 
in the dust — and he not ghostly, but cherishing 
many hearts with his own warmth in the chilliest 
atmosphere of life. What other fame is worth 
aspiring for ? Or, let me speak it more boldly, 
what other long-enduring fame can exist.? We 
neither remember nor care anything for the past, 
except as the poet has made it intelligibly noble 
and sublime to our comprehension." 

If it be such an inspiration to visit the grave 
of but one poet, how much more uplifting is it 
to stand amid the tombs of so many ! So great 
is the stress of life in these modern days, so many 
are the voices clamouring at our ears, that we 
need every possible incentive to turn our minds 
to the golden wealth of thought which these poets 
have garnered for us with much travail. As we 

107 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

stand beside their graves we can make no more 
worthy resolve than that which will pledge us 
to a rightful use of the inheritance they have 
left. So shall we weave for each dead singer 
the wreath he would love best to wear. 



108 



VII 
ROYALTY IN WAX 



ROYAIvTY IN WAX 

EXCEEDINGLY few of the innumerable 
thousands who visit Westminster Abbey 
every year are aware that the venerable 
roof of that building shelters a wholly unique 
collection of wax figures. No doubt the dis- 
covery that such is the case will be somewhat 
distressing to those who think of the structure 
as " a temple marked with the hand of an- 
tiquity, solemn as religious awe." Waxworks 
have so little in common with the associations 
that cluster around a building of so many exalted 
memories. 

Yet that feeling of incongruity may be a 
modern growth. Partly, perhaps, it is due to 
Dickens, and partly to another cause. That 
the idea of wax effigies appeals to the risible 
faculties is no doubt owing somewhat to the 
creation of Mrs. Jarley, the loquacious owner 
of that exhibition which was " the delight of the 
nobility and gentry, and the peculiar pet of the 
royal family." But there is a still earlier cause, 

111 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

from which Dickens is likely to have derived his 
inspiration. More than a century has gone by 
since Madame Tussaud, who had learned 
modelling in Paris and suffered imprisonment 
under the Revolution, settled in London and 
established her world-renowned collection of 
waxworks. For so many years, then, has the 
exhibition of wax figures been regarded from 
the standpoint of money-making and amuse- 
ment, that the bare suggestion of the existence 
of similar efiigies in Westminster Abbey may 
savour of sacrilege. 

Such is the case nevertheless. And in the late 
seventeenth century the waxworks of the Abbey 
were held in higher repute than the most elo- 
quent pulpit orator. A pertinent proof of that 
fact is recorded by Dr. Pope in his " Life of 
Seth Ward " in the following passage : " An- 
other time Dr. Barrow preached at the Abbey 
on a holiday. Here I must inform the reader 
that it is a custom for the servants of the church 
upon all holidays, Sundays excepted, betwixt 
the sermon and evening prayers, to show the 
Tombs and Effigies of the Kings and Queens 
in Wax, to the meaner sort of people, who then 
flock thither from all the corners of the town, 
and pay their twopence to see ' The Play of the 

112 



ROYALTY IN WAX 

Dead Volks,' as I have heard a Devonshire 
clown most improperly call it. These perceiving 
Dr. Barrow in the pulpit after the hour was 
past, and fearing to lose that time in hearing 
which they thought they could more profitably 
employ in receiving — these, I say, became 
impatient, and caused the organ to be struck 
up against him, and would not give over playing 
till they had blow'd him down." 

How did these wax effigies gain entrance to 
the Abbey ? Well, briefly, most of them are 
relics of funerals. But there are several which 
owe their existence to the enterprise with which, 
once the idea was conceived, the Abbey officials 
carried on the waxworks business. 

First, then, a word or two of explanation. In 
the distant centuries, no funeral of royalty or 
of any noble person was deemed complete unless 
the procession included a " herse." Naturally, 
the reader will remark, for how else would the 
body be carried to the grave ? But the " hearse " 
of the twentieth century and the " herse '* of 
the seventeenth century have nothing in com- 
mon. The former certainly is used to carry the 
coffin; the latter was not. In the seventeenth 
century, and earlier and later, the coffin was 
carried to burial on a car ; the ** herse " was 

113 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

used for quite a different purpose. Instead of 
being a vehicle of the type now in use under 
that name, the '* herse " was a wooden platform 
or small stage, draped with black hangings, in 
the centre of which there reposed a waxen image 
of the person who was being carried to his grave. 
This " herse " usually occupied a place in the 
procession immediately in front of the car 
bearing the coffin and body. 

What may have been the origin of this curious 
custom is not definitely known. Perhaps it 
owed its origin to the Roman occupation of 
Britain, for among the Romans it was the special 
privilege of a nobleman, and of no other, to 
have a waxen image of his person carried at his 
funeral. If the Romans followed this custom in 
Britain, it was a long time ere the natives copied 
it, for the practice does not seem to date further 
back than the fourteenth century in England. 

After the " herse " and its waxen figure had 
been escorted in the funeral procession, its 
mission was by no means completed. It was 
carried into the Abbey itself, and, when the 
coffin had been buried, was placed over or by 
the side of the grave. In those olden days, 
funeral wreaths were not in vogue, but little 
tributes of affection, which sometimes took the 

114 



ROYALTY IN WAX 

form of poems, were pinned to the black hangings 
of the " herse," or attached with paste or wax. 
If no adverse fate overtook it, the wax effigy 
was usually allowed to remain for a month beside 
the grave of the person it depicted; but this 
period was greatly exceeded in the case of 
royalty. Sometimes, however, the figure was 
so roughly handled that it had to be removed 
in a few days. This was the case with the effigy 
of the Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary general. 
On the night after his funeral, some Cavaliers 
broke into the Abbey, and, after defacing the 
head of the image, helped themselves to most 
of the garments in which it had been dressed. 
As a consequence, the remains, which were 
literally " remains," had to be gathered up and 
removed the following day. 

From the time of Queen Elizabeth, it became 
customary, after the " herse " had remained 
beside the grave for some months, to remove the 
waxen figure and preserve that for a still longer 
period. In that practice will probably be found 
the origin of the unique exhibition which remains 
in the Abbey to this day but is so little known 
to most visitors. As the years went by, the 
officials realized that they had quite an interesting 
collection of figures on their hands, and the 

115 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

next step was to provide a suitable apartment 
in which to keep them, and for admission to 
which a fee could be exacted. Such an apart- 
ment was found in the oratory over Islip's 
Chapel, and in that chamber the effigies are 
still carefully preserved in glass-door cases. 

Islip's Chapel is well worthy the attention of 
the visitor for its own sake. It is situated to the 
left of the usual entrance at Solomon's Porch, 
at the beginning of the north ambulatory. 
Abbot Islip, the '* great builder," laid the 
foundation stone of this exquisite little chapel 
in 1502, and thirty years later he was laid to 
rest within its walls. That long-dead churchman 
becomes almost a living figure under the loving 
touch of Dean Stanley's pen. " In the elaborate 
representation which has been preserved of 
his obsequies, we seem to be following to their 
end the funeral of the Middle Ages. We see 
him standing amidst the ' slips ' or branches 
of the bower of moral virtues, which, according 
to the fashion of the fifteenth century, indicated 
his name; with the words, significant of his 
character, ' Seek peace and pursue it.' We see 
him, as he last appeared in state at the corona- 
tion of Henry VIII., assisting Wareham in the 
act, so fraught with consequences for all the 

116 



ROYALTY IN WAX 

future history of the English Church — amidst 
all the works of the Abbey, which he is carrying 
on with all the energy of his individual character 
and with the strange exorcisms of the age which 
was drawing to its close. We see him on his 
death-bed, in the old manor-house of Neate 
surrounded by the priests and saints of the 
ancient church ; the Virgin standing at his feet, 
and imploring her Son's assistance to John Islip 
— ' Islip, O Fili vencius, succurre Johanni ! ' — 
the Abbot of Bury administering the last sacra- 
ments. We see his splendid hearse, amidst a 
forest of candles, filled with images, and sur- 
mounted by the crucifix with its attendant saints. 
We see him, as his effigy lay under the tomb in 
the little chapel which he built, like a king, for 
himself, recumbent in solitary state — the only 
Abbot who achieved that honour." 

But another invisible presence also pervades 
this little chapel. When, nearly seventy years 
ago, the kindly generosity of America freely 
acceded to England's request for the remains of 
Major Andre, and the coffin of that heroic and 
ill-fated soldier was taken up from its resting- 
place by the banks of the Hudson and removed 
to England, it was deposited first in Islip's 
Chapel, still covered with the garlands and 

117 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

flowers of transatlantic forgiveness. The chest, 
too, in which the remains were enclosed, is 
preserved in the Abbey to this day, and may be 
seen in a corner of the oratory upstairs keep- 
ing company with the effigies of royalty in 
wax. 

Two centuries ago, a writer who described a 
" Walk Through London " gave the total of 
these wax images as half a score. " And so we 
went on," he wrote, " to see the ruins of majesty 
in the waxen figures placed there by authority. 
As soon as we had ascended half a score stone 
steps in a dirty cobweb hole, and in old worm- 
eaten presses, whose doors flew open at our 
approach, here stood Edward the Third, as 
they told us ; which was a broken piece of wax- 
work, a battered head, and a straw-stuffed 
body, not one quarter covered with rags ; his 
beautiful Queen stood by ; not in better repair ; 
and so to the number of half a score Kings and 
Queens, not near so good figures as the King 
of the Beggars make, and all the begging crew 
would be ashamed of the company. Their rear 
was brought up with good Queen Bess, with the 
remnants of an old dirty ruff, and nothing else 
to cover her." 

Half a score is still the figure at which the 

118 



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ROYALTY IN WAX 

eflSgies stand, but in the interval several which 
were to be seen two hundred years since have 
been replaced by more recent creations. Some 
years subsequent to the visit described above the 
oflScials of the Abbey appear to have realized 
that an " old dirty ruff " was a rather scanty 
wardrobe for a Queen, and the action they took 
to remedy matters resulted in the modelling and 
fully robing of the figure now in the collection. 
The face is thought to have been copied from 
the effigy on the Queen's tomb, and is no doubt 
a faithful likeness of the virgin monarch as she 
appeared in her old age. 

So far as actual likeness is concerned, there 
can be no doubt about the authenticity of that 
of Charles II. This is the oldest of all the 
figures, and the face was undoubtedly modelled 
at the time of the monarch's death. For two 
hundred years the effigy is said to have stood 
above the grave of the King and was his only 
monument. If the *' merry monarch " was 
speedily forgotten by his own contemporaries, 
he has certainly had his full share of attention 
since, for it will be observed that while the glass- 
door of Queen Elizabeth's cupboard does not 
bear a single inscription, that which protects 
the effigy of Charles is scored with countless 

119 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

signatures. The figure is richly garbed in the 
blue and red velvet robes of the Order of the 
Garter, and, by reason of its faithful likeness to 
a King who is interesting alike in his weakness 
and strength, it must always prove the chief 
attraction in this unique collection. 

One visitor to this little exhibition, and he 
a dweller in New York, seems to have fallen in 
love with the effigy of Queen Mary, the wife of 
William of Orange. And who can blame him ? 
In her character she was undoubtedly one of 
the most amiable of English Queens, sweet in 
temper and of unbounded generosity ; and in 
her person she was fully as majestic and hand- 
some as she appears in her waxen counterpart. 
Her funeral is said to have been the " saddest 
and most august " ever seen in Westminster 
Abbey, and while Macaulay tells how the black 
plumes of the funeral car were relieved with 
flakes of snow, we learn from another source 
that a robin redbreast was constantly seen 
perched on her herse in the Abbey. The face 
of the Queen was modelled from a cast taken 
after her death. Close by, but in a much darker 
corner, is the richly-dressed effigy of Queen 
Anne, that obstinate but sorely-tried sovereign 
of whom the record stands that " sleep was 

120 



ROYALTY IN WAX 

never more welcome to a weary traveller than 
death was to her." 

In the centre of this tiny chamber lies the 
recumbent figure of the last Duke of Bucking- 
ham, who, dying in Rome at the age of nineteen, 
was brought back to the Abbey for interment. 




THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM 



This youth, who had for his mother Catherine, 
the natural daughter of James II., and for his 
father John Sheffield, who wrote the name of 
Buckingham in English literature, was epitaphed 
by Pope in these lines: 



' If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, 
And ev'ry op'ning virtue blooming round. 
Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, 
Or add one patriot to a sinking state; 
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, 
Or sadly told, how many hopes lie here ! 

12] s 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

The living virtue now had shone approv'd. 
The senate heard him, and his country lov'd. 
Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame 
Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham : 
In vi'hom a race, for courage fam'd and art. 
Ends in the milder merit of the heart; 
And chiefs or sages long to Britain giv'n, 
Pays the last tribute of a saint to heav'n. 

Buckingham's eflSgy was the last to be actually 
carried in a funeral procession, and the cere- 
monies of that occasion gave rise to a delightful 
exhibition of feminine sarcasm on the part of the 
young duke's mother. Anxious that the obse- 
quies of her son should be conducted with the 
maximum of outward embellishment, she asked 
the Duchess of Marlborough for the use of the 
funeral car which had borne the remains of her 
famous husband to his grave. " It carried my 
Lord Marlborough," rejoined the haughty 
duchess, " and shall never be profaned by any 
other corpse." To which the equally high- 
spirited Catherine retorted, " I have consulted 
the undertaker, and he tells me that I may have 
a finer one for twenty pounds." 

That Nelson has a place among these efiigies 
is due to the unseemly wrangle which took place 
over his body. The oflScials of St. Paul's 
Cathedral and Westminster Abbey were keenly 

122 



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ROYALTY IN WAX 

alive to the monetary importance of the great 
admiral's remains; they knew that wherever 
they were buried thither the crowds would 
congregate, and the greater the crowd the richer 
the harvest of admission fees. When St. Paul's 
won the day, and the hero was buried within 
its precincts, the expected happened. That is, 
Westminster Abbey, for all its waxen images 
and other attractions, was deserted by the crowd, 
and the minor canons realized that they must 
devise some novelty if they did not wish their 
salaries to dwindle to the vanishing point. At 
this crisis, order was given for the modelling 
of an eflSgy of Nelson, which was copied by 
the artist from a statue for which the admiral had 
given sittings. To add to the allurement of the 
figure, great pains were taken to secure for it 
such garments as had actually been worn by 
the hero of Trafalgar, with such success that all 
the clothes on the eflSgy, with the exception of 
the coat, had really clothed the living body of 
Nelson. The poorly-paid canons of the Abbey 
reaped the reward they desired, for the crowds, 
by their speedy return to Westminster, showed 
that a life-like image of their dead hero was 
much more to their taste than the sombre tomb 
which was all St. Paul's could show. 

123 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Time was when the fee for admission to this 
unique exliibition was collected in an old cap, 
said to have belonged to General Monk. That 
receptacle was thrust under the nose of Oliver 
Goldsmith, who, however, only asked, " Pray, 
friend, what might this cap have cost originally ? " 
But the guide was not to be baulked of his prey. 
"That, sir, I don't know; but this cap is all 
the wages I have for my trouble." Though 
the cap has disappeared, a charge of sixpence 
for admission is still enforced; but who can 
pretend that sixpence is an exorbitant sum 
for a realistic interview with good Queen Bess, 
the patron of Nell Gwynn, and the victor of 
Trafalgar, to say nothing of their companions ? 



124 



VIII 
BUNHILL FIELDS 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

BY common consent the two books which, 
next to the Bible, have been most widely 
read by English-speaking people are " The 
Pilgrim's Progress " and " Robinson Crusoe." 
Of the first Coleridge declared that he knew 
no book he could so safely recommend " as 
teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth ; " 
Swift found in one of its chapters better enter- 
tainment and information than in long dis- 
courses on the will and intellect; Southey 
eulogized it as " a clear stream of current 
English ; " Lord Kames found its style akin to 
that of Homer with its *' proper mixture of the 
dramatic and narrative ; " and Macaulay con- 
cluded his judgment of its author with this oft- 
cited tribute : " We are not afraid to say that, 
though there were many clever men in England 
during the latter half of the seventeenth century, 
there were only two great creative minds. One 
of these minds produced the * Paradise Lost,' 
the other * The Pilgrim's Progress.' " 

127 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Nor has *' Robinson Crusoe " failed to win 
equal praise. Dr. Johnson placed it first 
among the three books he wished longer ; Rous- 
seau hailed it as the most complete " treatise 
on natural education ; " Lamb declared it " de- 
lightful to all ranks and classes," equally at 
home in the kitchen and the libraries of the 
wealthiest and the most learned ; Leslie Stephen 
credited its author with the gift of a tongue " to 
which no one could listen without believing every 
word that he uttered ; " and Sir Walter Scott 
sums up the judgment of all by declaring that 
" there exists no book, either of instruction or 
entertainment, in the English language, which 
has been more generally read, and more uni- 
versally admired." 

Yet the authors of these books, — books 
which have coloured the religious and imagina- 
tive thought of so many millions, — John 
Bunyan and Daniel Defoe, have no memorial 
of any kind in Westminster Abbey. Of course 
their creed, alien as it was from that of the 
Church of England, rendered their burial in 
the Abbey impossible in the late seventeenth and 
mid-eighteenth centuries. Nor, at that date, 
had England realized the abiding fame of the 
two writers. But it is different now. In this 

128 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

more charitable age the custodians of England's 
Valhalla do not enquire so closely into the 
religious faith of the nation's immortals, and 
that these two are secure of their place among 
those immortals no one doubts. Yet no me- 
morial bust or votive tablet of either John 
Bunyan or Daniel Defoe has been set up in 
Westminster Abbey. 

Elsewhere, then, and not in the '* long-drawn 
aisle " or beneath the *' fretted vault " of stately 
Abbey or Cathedral, must the resting-place 
of these deathless writers be sought. 

Perhaps Bunyan and Defoe would have been 
well content that it should be so. Their non- 
conforming fellow-sleepers and stirring environ- 
ment in Bunhill Fields are more in harmony 
with the lives they lived and the books they 
wrote than the austerity and aloofness of West- 
minster Abbey. Than those two places of 
sepulture it would be difficult to imagine burial- 
places of greater contrast. The atmosphere of 
the Abbey, for all the humanizing influence of 
Poets' Corner, is redolent of courtliness, and 
power, and high achievement in senate and 
battlefield, and the overmastering presence of 
royalty; and over all there broods that sense 
of repose and detachment from actual life 

129 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

which belongs to an outworn conception of 
reUgion. 

No such feeUngs oppress the visitor to Bunhill 
Fields. This ancient burial-ground, aptly de- 
scribed by Southey as " the Campo Saiito of the 
Dissenters," is situated on the west side of City 
Road, one of the busiest of London's ever- 
crowded thoroughfares. From the dawning 
light of the longest summer day, and on through 
all its hours until dawn is about to break again, 
this highway is astir with human life. Close 
by are the headquarters of the Honourable 
Artillery Company; directly opposite is John 
Wesley's Chapel ; right and left are several of 
London's most notable hospitals ; and mingling 
indiscriminately with these reminders of war, and 
faith, and charity are countless warehouses, 
factories and other hives of industry. 

But as amidst the eddies of a whirlpool there 
are here and there placid surfaces in strange 
contrast to the seething waters around, so this 
historic God's acre offers the wayfarer a peaceful 
oasis in the restless tide of London life. In its 
quiet aloofness from human activity it per- 
petuates the rural repose which rested over 
Finsbury as a whole when the first grave was 
dug in Bunhill Fields. Two years after this 

130 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

plot of land had been definitely enclosed as a 
place of burial, Pepys found this neighbourhood 
distinguished for its " very pleasant " fields, 
and so it remained until well on into the eight- 
eenth century. Every yard of those " very 
pleasant " fields has long since been given its 
burden of house, or church, or factory, or hos- 
pital, but the few acres of Bunhill Fields, because 
they were set apart for death's harvest, hold the 
devouring tide of bricks and mortar steadfastly 
at bay. 

Some two and a half centuries have passed 
since Bunhill Fields was devoted to the burial 
of the dead. One account antedates that event 
by more than another century, for it is aflfirmed 
that in 1549 more than a thousand cartloads of 
human remains were removed from the charnel 
of St. Paul's Cathedral and buried here. Perhaps 
that may account for the name of the cemetery, 
which is given as *' Bonhill Field," that is 
" Bone-hill," in 1567. Whatever truth there 
may be in that philological guess, it is indubi- 
table that ninety-eight years later, that is, in 
1665, this portion of the manor of Finsbury 
was set apart by the authorities of the city of 
London, and enclosed by a brick wall, to provide 
a burial-place for the victims of the Great 

131 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Plague. Happily, however, that dread scourge 
appears to have spent its force before the final 
arrangements for interments here had been 
made, and later the land was purchased by a 
Mr. Tindal who '* converted it into a burial- 
ground for the use of Dissenters." It conse- 
quently became known as " Tindal's Burial- 
ground," a name which, although in use as late 
as 1756, has been entirely superseded by the 
older designation of Bunhill Fields. 

For nearly two centuries, that is, from 1665 
to 1852, this plot of ground was industriously 
tilled by the spade of the grave-digger. A record 
of the interments shows that one hundred and 
twenty-three thousand mortals have been buried 
here, the great majority of whom were debarred 
by their non-conformist faith from sepulture 
in consecrated ground. " Nor," as it has been 
appositely remarked, " is theirs all ignoble dust. 
Some were buried here whose names have 
always been fondly cherished by the nation, and 
whose writings are amongst the most popular 
in the English language. Notable men of all 
professions and of all religious communities, 
divines, authors, and artists, with a crowd of 
worthies and confessors, whose learning and 
piety not only adorned the age in which they 

132 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

lived, but have proved a blessing to the land, are 
interred in this ground. Many thousands of 
persons not in England alone but in America 
and the British Colonies have honoured ancestors 
lying here." 

Four acres of land have a limit in their 
capacity for receiving human bodies, and that 
limit was reached at Bunhill Fields thirteen 
years before it attained the second century of 
its existence as a burial-ground. In 1852, then, 
the Secretary of State issued an order prohibiting 
further interments, and the Nonconformists of 
England, to whom this plot of ground had 
become endeared as the Westminster Abbey of 
their illustrious dead, had to seek a place of 
sepulture elsewhere. 

Then followed a period of comparative neglect 
for Bunhill Fields. For fifteen years the burial- 
ground, no longer brought freshly to mind by 
constant use, was abandoned. The rains levelled 
the mounds of earth, frost and wind worked 
their will on the monuments, and tangled grass 
and weeds completed the work of desolation. 
At this juncture the cemetery was threatened 
with complete extinction, for a rapacious eccle- 
siastical corporation, cloaking its desire for gold 
under legal technicalities, made an effort to 

133 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

secure possession of the ground with an eye to 
its exploitation for building purposes. Awakened 
in that way to the danger which imperilled a 
spot so sacred in their annals, the Noncon- 
formists of England bestirred themselves, with 
the result that an act of Parliament was passed 
securing the inviolability of Bunhill Fields for 
ever. 

One result of that tardy recognition of the 
historic interest of this burial-ground may be 
seen in the orderly appearance it presents to-day. 
Extensive alterations and reparations were car- 
ried out as soon as the decision of Parliament 
was taken, but in the course of that work not 
a fragment of stone was taken away, nor any 
portion of the soil removed. Tombs have been 
raised from beneath the ground, stones have 
been set straight, illegible inscriptions have been 
deciphered and re-cut, hundreds of decayed 
tombs have been restored, paths have been laid 
and avenues planted; but in doing all this the 
sacred rights of sepulture have been scrupulously 
respected. Naturally, many of the original 
monuments are no longer in existence, but in 
the work of restoration it was found possible to 
ensure the preservation of some five thousand 
tombstones. 

134 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

Although the elements have obliterated so 
many thousands of the inscriptions graven on 
the memorials of Bunhill Fields, copies of the 
most important still exist. The accident of a 
venerable lady keeping a diary has preserved 
the memory of the man to whom we are indebted 
for those copies. The aged lady in question, 
who lived close by, *' walked for the air " no- 
where so frequently as in the " Dissenters' 
Burial Ground." Two children were her most 
constant companions, of whom the diarist records 
that they were at great pains to plant flowers over 
some neglected graves, and to copy down ** most 
of the singular lines inscribed on the tombs." 
But a more industrious '* Old Mortality " than 
those eager children was quietly at work in the 
same place. The diarist tells how one afternoon, 
after a visit to a nearby chapel, she and her 
pastor, Mr. Winter, and a clerical friend of the 
latter. Mat. Wilks, paid a visit to Bunhill Fields 
to see Dr. Owens' grave. '* There," the diary 
says, " we found a worthy man known to Mr. 
Wilks, Mr. Rippon by name, who was laid down 
upon his side between two graves, and writing 
out the epitaphs word for word. He had an 
ink-horn in his button-hole, and a pen and book. 
He tells us that he has taken most of the old 

135 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 



inscriptions, and that he will, if God be pleased 
to spare his days, do all, notwithstanding it is 
a grievous labour, and the writing is hard to 
make out by reason of the oldness of the cutting 

in some, and de- 
facings of other 
stones. It is a la- 
bour of love to 
him, and when he 
is gathered to his 
fathers, I hope 
some one will go 
on with his work." 
That pious wish 
was fulfilled. 
When Dr. Rippon 
laid aside his ink- 
horn and pen, the 
work upon which 
he had expended 
so much w^illing 
labour was taken up by other hands, and in the 
College of Heralds and the office of the Architect 
of the City of London are preserved complete 
records of all inscriptions existing in 1868. 

Such matters, however, are mainly of appeal 
to the patient genealogist, the unwearied explorer 

136 




DANIEL DEFOE S GRAVE 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

of the intricacies of family history; for the 
majority who seek out Bunhill Fields the main 
interest lies in the fact that here it is possible 
to stand close beside the dust of Bunyan, Defoe, 
Isaac Watts, William Blake, and other sons of 
fame. 

Accident was responsible for Bunyan's burial 
in London. His own choice without doubt 
would have fallen on Bedford or the adjacent 
hamlet of Elstow. In the latter he was born 
and had spent his careless boyhood and early 
manhood; the former had been the scene of 
his weary imprisonment, the sphere of his 
labours as an author and preacher. When he 
became famous, alike for his prowess with his 
pen and his gifts as a speaker, he had many 
offers of preferment to larger and more lucrative 
positions, but nothing could induce him to 
leave Bedford, where he was supremely happy 
in his family and all other relationships. And 
there, unquestionably, he would have been laid 
to rest save for accident. 

Death was appointed to overtake him away 
from home. Starting out from Bedford to Lon- 
don, where his presence was needed in con- 
nection with a new book, he made a wide detour 
to Reading on a mission of reconciliation. A 

137 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

father he knew had quarrelled with his son, and 
threatened to disinherit him. Bunyan, however, 
was able to reunite the two, and, the mission 
accomplished, he then resumed his journey to 
the metropolis. But the delay caused him to be 
caught in a furious summer storm, through 
which he rode for forty miles. The evil effects 
of his drenching did not manifest themselves 
for a few days. In fact, he was able to preach 
on the Sunday after his arrival, but on the 
Tuesday following he was seized with a violent 
fever, and ten days later he breathed his last, 
his final utterance being, " Take me, for I come 
to Thee." And then his friends recalled that 
in his last sermon he had said : " Dost thou see 
a soul that has the image of God in him ? Love 
him, love him : say, I'his man and I must go 
to heaven one day ; serve one another, do good 
for one another; and if any wrong you, pray 
to God to right you, and love the brotherhood." 
That exhortation to broad charity was char- 
acteristic of the man. The author of " The 
Pilgrim's Progress " was an utter stranger to 
that narrowness which is sometimes thought to 
be inseparable from the faith he professed. 
*' He was extremely tolerant in his terms of 
Church membership," says Froude. *' He of- 

138 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

fended the stricter part of his congregation by 
refusing ever to make infant baptism a condition 
of exclusion. The only persons with whom he 
declined to communicate were those whose lives 
were openly immoral." He was no self-seeker. 
When a London merchant offered to take his 
son into his house, Bunyan replied, " God did 
not send me to advance my family, but to preach 
the Gospel." 

None need be surprised, then, that a man so 
transparently sincere, so human, so loving, so 
self-denying was heard gladly on the rare oc- 
casions when he preached in London; nor 
that many pleaded that they might in death be 
laid near his grave. It was no unusual event for 
more than a thousand people to assemble by 
seven o'clock on a dark winter's morning to 
hear him preach ; ample indeed must the recom- 
pense have been to gaze upon his open ruddy 
face and sparkling eyes. Many of the better-off 
dissenters of London must have contended for 
the honour of acting host to the lovable Bedford 
preacher. On his last visit that privilege fell 
to the lot of one John Strudwick, a grocer in 
whose house ready hospitality had been given 
him often before. Mr. Strudwick possessed a 
vault in Bunhill Fields, where he had the 

139 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

mournful satisfaction of laying the dust of the 
immortal dreamer. The monument, which was 
restored by public subscription in 1862, sustains 
a recumbent figure of the Bedford preacher and 
bears the simple inscription : ** John Bunyan, 
Author of ' The Pilgrim's Progress/ ob. 31st 
August, 1688, aet. 60." 

Forty-three years were to elapse ere the 
author of " Robinson Crusoe *' came to join the 
author of " The Pilgrim's Progress " in the 
silent companionship of Bunhill Fields. Unlike 
in their lives and characters, Bunyan and Defoe 
had nothing in common in death. Pitiful, 
indeed, is the contrast between the final earthly 
hours of these two. Such fame and prosperity 
as Defoe won by '* Robinson Crusoe " came to 
him late in life, for he was nearly sixty when he 
penned that classic; but for all that the closing 
year or two of his existence held nothing of the 
comfort of wealth or the happiness of renown. 

Over the multifarious activities of Defoe a 
sudden eclipse descended in September, 1729. 
He had a new book partly in type when he 
ceased his labours abruptly and fled to some 
mysterious hiding-place. Why is unknown. 
Among the many reasons advanced the most 
credible is that which does Defoe the least 

140 



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JOHN BUNYAN'S tomb. 



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BUNHILL FIELDS 

honour. Any way, it is a sad picture we have 
of an old man, weary with much labour, cut off 
from his familiar haunts and his family, a home- 
less, desolate, penurious wanderer. He died on 
April 26th, 1731, in Ropemaker's Alley, Moor- 
fields, and it was no doubt the proximity of his 
deathplace to Bunhill Fields which led to his 
burial there. The recorder of the interment 
made the bare and ignorant entry, " 1731, April 
26. Mr. Dubow, Cripplegate ; " and the creator 
of Robinson Crusoe had to wait a hundred and 
forty years before his resting-place was marked 
by any monument. How that long over-due 
tribute was paid to Defoe, the following inscrip- 
tion explains : " This monument is the result of 
an appeal in ' The Christian World ' newspaper 
to the boys and girls of England for funds to 
place a suitable memorial upon the grave of 
Daniel Defoe. It represents the united contri- 
butions of seventeen hundred persons. Sept. 

1870." 

Among the other notable sleepers in this 
God's Acre are Dr. Thomas Goodwin, who 
watched by the death-bed of Oliver Cromwell ; 
General Charles Fleetwood, a prominent leader 
in the Civil War and the son-in-law of the 
Protector; Susannah Wesley, the mother of 

141 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 



John and Charles Wesley; Joseph Ritson, the 
laborious antiquary ; Isaac Watts, the famous 
hymnologist ; Nathaniel Mather, " the honour 
of both Englands ; " and William Blake, the 
mystic painter-poet whose genius has given 
employment to many pens during the past few 

years. 

Although it was 
in a humble room 
that Blake died, — 
the one modest 
apar tmen t in 
which he spent his 
days and nights 
with his beloved 
wife, painting, 
drawing, studying, cooking and sleeping within 
its walls, — his death -bed was radiant with 
happiness. Almost the last stroke of his pen- 
cil was employed in a hasty sketch of his 
wife, " ever an angel " to him, and his expiring 
breath was spent in songs, words and melody 
being the offspring of the moment. ** My 
beloved," he said to his wife of these songs, 
" they are not mine — no — they are not mine.* 
He died on August 12th, 1827, and at his own 
request he was buried in Bunhill Fields, where 

142 




THE GRAVE OF ISAAC WATTS 



BUNHILL FIELDS 

his parents and others of his relatives had been 
laid. No monument at present marks the 
resting-place of Blake. He was placed in a 
" common grave," which was doubtless used for 
other interments. Its position, however, is 
definitely known, and it may be that ere many 
years have passed some simple memorial will 
be raised over the dust of one to whom " the 
veil of outer things seemed always to tremble 
with some breath behind it.'* 



143 



IX 
FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

GRANTING to a given poet and a given 
painter the possession of equal genius, 
the latter will always have to wait longer 
than the former for widespread recognition of 
his merits. The reason seems capable of a simple 
explanation. By paper and print the poet can 
multiply his verses indefinitely, and the millionth 
printed copy is as efficacious in advertising his 
genius as the first. But the case of the painter 
is not so fortunate. His fame in the last resort 
must rest upon the actual sight of his pictures, 
and that experience can be enjoyed by com- 
paratively few. In his lifetime most of his 
paintings are acquired by private owners, and 
thus withdrawn from public gaze; their brief 
exhibition in art galleries only provides oppor- 
tunity for the minority to make their acquaint- 
ance. 

Happily, however, that minority includes the 
critics of art, to whom falls the responsibility 
of advising the world when a new genius makes 

147 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

his appearance. But their influence is slow in 
reaching the great pubHc, even though it may 
be reinforced by reproductions of a selected 
picture here and there. Still, the eulogy of the 
critic is responsible in the end for the artist's 
ultimate fame. Pictures which are praised by 
many pens awaken the desire of wealthy con- 
noisseurs, and when that stage is reached the 
popular verdict is won. 

Perhaps it hardly accords with the dignity of 
art that its general recognition should owe so 
much to the cheque-book of its rich patron ; but 
the fact remains and must be accepted with the 
best grace possible. Max Nordau cynically 
notes that on the day when six hundred thousand 
francs were paid for Millet's " Angelus " the 
*' snobs of both worlds took off their hats and 
murmured in a voice hushed with reverence: 
* This must be a great painter.' As we see, the 
world's fame is but a question of money. Many 
more men are able to reckon than are able to 
feel the beauty of art, and, to the vast majority, 
its price is the infallible, the one key to the 
understanding of a work." 

During the present year the cheque-book 
stamp of merit has been placed on the art of 
Frederick Walker. At an important picture sale^ 

148 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

where canvases by Millais, and Mason, and 
David Cox and Turner were offered for the eager 
competition of wealthy collectors, Walker's water 
colour replica of " The Harbour of Refuge '* 




FRED WALKER S HOME AT COOKHAM 



aroused spirited bidding and finally realized two 
thousand five hundred and eighty guineas, the 
highest price of the day. 

One inevitable result will follow in the wake 
of this monetary triumph : Cookham, that 
lovely Thames-side village which inspired so 

149 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

much of Walker's best work, will in the future 
prove as attractive for its artistic associations 
as it has been in the past for its aquatic pleasures. 
Nay, more. It is not improbable that the humble 
cottage in which Walker lived, and the modest 
headstone which marks his grave, will acquire 
a greater interest for future visitors than the 
" stately houses of titled and wealthy English- 
men " which had so overpowering an effect on 
a pilgrim of a year or two ago. This obsessed 
note-taker does not appear to have heard of the 
name of Frederick Walker; but he waxes 
eloquent about my Lord This who owns such 
and such a seat, his Grace That whose mansion 
stands just here, and about a notorious ex- 
patriated American who possesses the most 
gorgeous estate of them all. Well, who shall 
grudge them their brief fame ? Lord will follow 
lord, and duke succeed duke, and millionaire 
shall come after millionaire, but for the ages 
unborn the greatest glory of Cookham will be 
that its quaint street and verdant meadows and 
bosky trees and peaceful river are transferred 
for ever to the poetic landscapes of Frederick 
Walker. 

In the apportionment of years only three and 
a half decades were allotted to the artist, and of 

150 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

these some twenty-five had fled before he learnt 
to know and love this picturesque corner of 
Berkshire. But those twenty-five years had 
prepared him to reap the rich harvest awaiting 
his brush here. 

Frederick Walker was born in London in 
1840, of parents who on his father's side could 
claim artistic ancestry, and on his mother's a 
descent from forebears who had an intuitive 
love of the beautiful. After brief and haphazard 
schooling he, while in his teens, began to fre- 
quent the Elgin Marble room of the British 
Museum, and, by assiduous drawing from the 
antique, acquired that sense of classic form which 
was to prove so invaluable in after years. 
Apprenticeship to wood engraving followed, 
and when he had not completed his twentieth 
year he had entered upon his artistic career by 
making wood-cuts for the press. This soon led 
to an introduction to Thackeray, who at the 
time was on the look-out for an artist to illustrate 
" The Adventures of Philip." The meeting 
between the two is described by George Smith, 
who drove the young man to the novelist's 
house. *' When we went up to Mr. Thackeray, 
he saw how nervous and distressed the young 
artist was. After a little time he said, * Can 

151 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

you draw ? Mr. Smith says you can.' * Y-e-e-s, 
I think so,' said the young man who was, within 
a few years, to excite the admiration of the 
whole world by the excellence of his drawings. 
' I'm going to shave,' said Mr. Thackeray, 
' would you mind drawing my back ? ' Mr. 
Thackeray went to his toilet table and com- 
menced the operation, while Mr. Walker took 
a sheet of paper and began his drawing; I 
looking out of the window in order that he 
might not feel that he was being watched. I 
think Mr. Thackeray's idea of turning his back 
towards him was as ingenious as it was kind ; 
for I believe that if Mr. Walker had been asked 
to draw his face instead of his back, he would 
hardly have been able to hold his pencil." This 
was in 1860, and the acquaintance thus begun 
soon ripened into friendship, which knew no 
break until the great-hearted novelist passed 
suddenly away three years later. Thackeray's 
daughter tells how Walker came running to 
the house when he heard of her father's death, 
and of how he was met " wandering about the 
stairs in tears." 

To follow the further stages in his career as 
he finally left periodical illustrating behind and 
came before the world as an artist in his own right 

152 




COOKHAM LOCK. 




COOKHAM ON THE THAMES. 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

is not necessary. Suffice it to say that by 1865, 
when he had reached his twenty-fifth year, he 
had ah-eady won enviable repute for his artistic 
skill. At this crisis some happy chance led to 
his taking a cottage at Cookham, as a summer 
home for himself and his devoted mother and 
sister and brother. That modest dwelling stands 
in the main street of the village, about midway 
between the railway station and the Thames. 
Perhaps it is hardly the kind of dwelling an artist 
would have been expected to choose, for its 
flint-built walls and ungainly height are far from 
picturesque. Hither, however, for the remaining 
ten years of his life, Walker frequently came, 
thus building up for this homely cottage a wealth 
of association which many a more stately home 
must envy. 

But if his cottage home at Cookham was not 
beautiful, the village itself, and other near-by 
hamlets, and the surrounding fields, and the 
" silver-streaming " Thames were replete with 
incipient pictures. The painter's mother realized 
that fact. " This is a very lovely place," she 
wrote soon after reaching the village. " Fred 
would be delighted; and for a summer picture 
of boys bathing, there cannot be its equal, at 
least in my experience." Such was to be the 

153 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

experience of her son too. Whether he was 
indebted to his mother for the suggestion is 
not on record, but there is plentiful evidence 
to show that it was at Cookham the idea for 
" The Bathers " first took possession of Walker's 
mind, and that it was by the banks of the 
Thames he worked at and finally achieved 
that masterly canvas. As he entered on his 
task he told his sister that " beginning a picture 
is like taking a wife; one must cleave to it, 
leaving one's relations and everything, to work 
when one can." It proved a more formidable 
undertaking than he had imagined, but he 
devoted to its completion every day that could be 
spared from other work, and his letters are full 
of proofs of the exacting labour entailed by the 
production of a great picture. He searched far 
and wide for just that nature setting which would 
satisfy his ideal, and at last he was rewarded. 
One day, he writes, he " came to a place having 
for a background that which will top everything 
for the picture, instead of Cliveden, though I 
shall keep the nearer trees, also the meadows 
and rushes, just the same. I got so excited that 
I saw the whole thing done from beginning to 
end. . . . When I saw the loveliness to-day, the 
whole picture came before me in such a way, 

154 



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FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

that I decided upon commencing on the big 
canvas at once." 

Apart from " The Bathers " and other paint- 
ings which need not be recalled, it must be 
pointed out that two other notable pictures owe 
their inspiration to this village and its neighbour- 
hood. One of these was *' The Street, Cook- 
ham," which has been truthfully characterized 
as " one of the best of those more spontaneous 
designs in which the artist treated a simple 
subject with no other aspiration than to express 
by legitimate means all its natural beauty. With 
a well-suggested continuity of onward move- 
ment a young girl drives before her, through the 
broken-down red-roofed houses of the winding 
village street, a flock of cackUng geese." The 
time-worn cottages which form the background 
of this picture were in full view from the windows 
of Walker's own abode, and, as he was not able 
to finish the picture at Cookham, three of the 
village geese were sent specially to his London 
studio for final observation there. 

Far more important in the record of Walker's 
fame was the other painting, *' The Harbour of 
Refuge," which owes so much to the near-by 
village of Bray. With the public at large this 
is the most popular of his pictures, and no 

155 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

pilgrim to Cookham should fail to extend his 
wanderings to Bray, where may be seen that 
restful almshouse quadrangle which the painter 
selected as the setting of his theme. Many 
pens have essayed a description of this famous 
canvas, but none with so much sympathy as 
that of Richard Muther. " The background," 
he writes, " is formed by one of those peaceful 
buildings where the aged poor pass the remainder 
of their days in meditative rest. The sun is 
sinking, and there is a rising moon. The red- 
tiled roof stands out clear against the quiet 
evening sky, while upon the terrace in front, over 
which the tremulous yellow rays of the setting 
sun are shed, an old woman with a bowed figure 
is walking, guided by a graceful girl who steps 
lightly forward. It is the old contrast between 
day and night, youth and age, strength and 
decay. Yet in Walker there is no opposition 
at all. For as light mingles with the shadows 
in the twilight, this young and vigorous woman 
who paces in the evening, holding the arm of 
the aged in mysterious silence, has at the moment 
no sense of her youth, but is rather filled with 
that melancholy thought underlying Goethe's 
' Warte nur bolde,' * Wait awhile and thou shalt 
rest too.' Her eyes have a strange gaze, as 

156 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

though she were looking into vacancy in mere 
absence of mind. And upon the other side of 
the picture this theme of the transient Ufe of 
humanity is still further developed. Upon a 
bench in the midst of a verdant lawn covered 
with daisies a group of old men are sitting 
meditatively near a hedge of hawthorn luxuriant 
in blossom. Above the bench there stands an 
old statue casting a clearly defined shadow upon 
the gravel path, as if to point to the contrast 
between imperishable stone and the unstable 
race of men, fading away like the autumn leaves. 
Well in the foreground a labourer is mowing 
down the tender spring grass with a scythe — 
a strange, wild, and rugged figure, a reaper 
whose name is Death," 

This note of *' fragrant lyricism " is the most 
dominant characteristic of Walker's work. To 
him it was given to uplift the simplicities of rural 
life, whether in labour or repose, into the realm 
of pensive imagination. But, as J. Comyns 
Carr has insisted. Walker was never tempted 
" to disturb the sweetness of outward nature in 
order to bring it into sympathy with the sadness 
often imagined in his figures. He allowed the 
contrast to take its due effect; and, however 
serious or pathetic the influence of his design, 

157 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

he never forgot the delicate beauty of the 
flowers, or the intricate dehcacy in tree- 
form and foliage." Much of this gift he owed 
to his communing with nature amid the fields 
of the Cookham country side. He paid many 
visits to the Highlands of Scotland, and spent 
one winter in Algiers; but the former were 
excursions in quest of fish, and the latter jour- 
ney was undertaken in search of health; the 
grandeurs of the Highlands and the light and 
colour of Algiers held no appeal to his art. 
Indeed, on one of his visits to Scotland he wrote : 
*' I often think of the peaceful meadows and 
gigantic shady trees about Cookham (even 
though I have been away so short a time) and 
compare the scene with this. No language of 
mine can draw the difference." 

Although more than a generation has passed 
since the artist was laid in his too-early grave 
in Cookham churchyard, there are still a few 
natives of the village who can speak of him from 
personal recollection. They all agree in describ- 
ing him as a shy, nervous man, and are at one 
in their testimony as to his dislike to being over- 
looked when at work on a canvas. It was always 
the same. An old farmer of another village said : 
" What a way he was in if any one passed and 

158 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

tried to look ! Why, he made nothing of taking 
up his picture and running into the house with 
it. You know he got my missus to stand a bit, 
but she nor I nor none of us never got a chance 
of a look at what he was a drawing." 

No artist worked more assiduously in actual 




C--^^-- 



FRED walker's GRAVE 



contact with nature than Walker, a fact which 
does much to explain the harmony which per- 
sists between his figures and the landscapes in 
which they are placed. It is more true of him 
than of Millet that his " landscapes are animated 
by men; but not by men who are accessories, 

159 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

as is the case with Corot, but by men who are 
a part of the landscape, its most important and 
essential part precisely as the trees and clouds 
are, but more dignified ^nd spiritual than trees 
or clouds." The testimony of one of his friends, 
to the efi'ect that he would work under circum- 
stances of physical discomfort such as would have 
made painting impossible to most men, is con- 
firmed by many stories still told of him at Cook- 
ham. 

Perhaps this devotion to his art hastened his 
end. Consumption was inherent in his family. 
Seven years before his own death a younger 
brother had fallen a victim to that ruthless 
disease and had been buried at Cookham; 
and hardly had he been dead a year when his 
greatly loved sister Fanny succumbed to the 
scourge and was laid to rest " by those she 
loved." 

Early in May, 1875, Walker and an artist 
friend departed for the Scottish Highlands for a 
short fishing trip. They made their headquarters 
at St. Fillans by the side of Loch Earn, and there 
the sudden call came for Walker. Hemorrhage 
of the lungs set in almost without warning, and 
a few days later, on June 4th, the gifted artist, 
whom Millais described as " the greatest painter 

160 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

of the century," breathed his last. The final 
scene of all shall be told in the language of his 
brother-in-law, Henry George Marks, whose 
Life of the artist is a singularly affectionate and 







JMM 



FREDERICK WALKER 11=...^,^ 

MEMBtROFTHE SOCIETY OF PMNTERSIN WATER COLORS B'^^^SvSi 

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THE WALKER MEDALLION IN COOKHAM CHURCH 

affecting tribute. " The funeral took place at 
Cookham on Tuesday, June 8, the remains 
having been taken down over night. A bright 
fresh morning, contrasting with the sadness of 
our errand, ushered in a day such as Walker 
loved. The coffin was taken to the little sitting- 
room in the cottage of one of his old Cookham 

161 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

friends ; and there, later in the day, came those 
whom love of him and of his work had brought 
from town. But for the short notice more 
would have been present at his funeral, though 
no numbers could have added to the impressive- 
ness of the scene — impressive from its absolute 
simplicity. As we stood around the open grave 
and saw the sheep browsing among the grassy 
mounds, glimpses here and there of the river 
he delighted in, the wealth of early summer lit 
up by a glorious sun; in addition to their 
affection for the man, none but must have felt 
the pity of it that the painter whose figures had 
found fit setting in such surroundings, whose 
insight had revealed to us new meaning in rural 
scenes and rustic labour, whose unsullied art 
had been a brightness in our lives, should have 
been taken ere he had reached the fulness of 
his prime. After more than twenty years have 
passed, one who was present writes : ' The 
way in which all gave way to uncontrollable 
emotion, which found its vent in tears, was an 
incident never to forget.' " 

In addition to the simple head-stone which 
marks his grave — the grave he shares with his 
brother and devoted mother — the memory of 
Walker is perpetuated in Cookham church by 

162 



FRED WALKER'S COOKHAM 

an exquisite medallion portrait executed as a 
labour of love by H. H. Armstead. These have 
their uses for such as need them, but the informed 
visitor to this lovely district will find himself 
murmuring the old words: Si monumentum 
quceris, circumspice. 



163 



X 

BY FAMOUS GRAVES 



BY FAMOUS GRAVES 

IN life, the great are the companions of a few ; 
in death they become the possession of the 
many. Is not this the secret of that charm 
which attracts so many thousands to the resting- 
places of illustrious men? There is a satisfac- 
tion in standing close by the side of those who 
have ministered to our imaginative life, even 
though it be but their dust to which we draw 
near. 

This after-death homage is one of the com- 
pensations of genius. How many there have 
been who have enriched the world with fair 
thoughts and melodious songs out of a life 
spent in poverty, neglect, and sorrow. It was 
not given them in life to enter into the heritage 
of a people's love; is it idle to think that in 
death they are conscious of the affection which 
we feel to-day as we stand beside their graves ? 
Some of the great dead had their meed of 
responsive love in life, and it is pleasant to think 
that their passing into the silent land may not 

167 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

have broken the continuity of their reward. 
Washington Irving observed that visitors to 
Westminster Abbey remained longest amid the 
memorials in Poets' Corner. " They linger 
about these as about the tombs of friends and 
companions ; for indeed there is something of 
companionship between the author and reader. 
Other men are known to posterity only through 
the medium of history, which is continually 
growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse 
between the author and his fellow men is ever 
new, active, and immediate. He has lived 
for them more than for himself; he has sacri- 
ficed surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself 
up from the delights of social life, that he might 
the more intimately commune with distant 
minds and distant ages. Well may the world 
cherish his renown ; for it has been purchased, 
not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the 
diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may 
posterity be grateful to his memory ; for he 
has left it an inheritance, not of empty names 
and sounding actions, but whole treasures of 
wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden 
veins of language." 

As there are few countries which have so many 
famous graves as England, so are there none of 

168 



BY FAMOUS GRAVES 

the earth's great dead who have more pilgrims 
to their shrines than those who have clothed 
their thoughts in the English tongue. There 
are solitary great graves in the world, such as 
Dante's, which are cosmopolitan in their inter- 
est; but in English soil is buried a vast army 
of immortals who are the common possession 
and glory of two great peoples. And there are 
no more faithful pilgrims to the famous graves 
of England than those who journey from the 
Republic of the West; their devotion to the 
memory of the illustrious dead often puts to 
shame the forgetfulness or apathy of those native 
to the land in which they rest. 

Although the grave of Laurence Sterne is within 
a stone's throw of one of the most crowded thor- 
oughfares of London, there are few save Ameri- 
cans who turn aside from the stream of life in 
Bayswater Road to gaze upon his resting-place 
in the St. George's burial-ground. He had 
boasted in " Tristram Shandy " that his prefer- 
ence would be to die in an inn, untroubled by 
the presence and services of his friends; yet 
when, in his London lodgings, he began to 
realize that death might be near, he pined for 
his daughter Lydia to nurse him. Only a hired 
nurse and a footman stood by Sterne's death- 

169 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

bed. The latter had been sent to inquire after 
the health of the famous author, and, being 
told by the landlady of the house to go upstairs 
and see for himself, he reached the death- 
chamber just as Sterne was passing away. 
Putting up his hand as though to ward off a 
blow, he ejaculated, " Now it is come," and 
so died. The story goes that even as he was 
dying, the nurse was busy possessing herself 
of the gold sleeve-links from his wrists. 

Despite the fame he had won, only two 
mourners followed Sterne to his grave. But 
other eyes, it seems, watched the burial ; for it is 
affirmed that two days later the body was taken 
from the grave and sold to a professor of anatomy 
for dissection. Only an accident revealed the 
identity of the " subject." Happening to have 
some friends visiting him at the time, the pro- 
fessor invited them to witness a demonstration, 
and on their following him to his surgery one 
of them was horrified to recognize in the partially 
dissected corpse the features of his friend 
Laurence Sterne. Such is the story, and most 
authorities agree in thinking it likely to be true. 
Perhaps it was not unknown to the two masons 
who erected the first stone over the grave, for 
their inscription began with the significant words, 

170 










THE GIJAVE OF LAURENCE STERNE. 




•)a 



WHERE THACKERAY SLEEPS. 



Qc>^<](>^CC>^<3(>^<3(>^<)C>^<3l>A<3(>A<)(>i<3(>i<JC>^^ 



BY FAMOUS GRAVES 

" Near to this place lies the body," etc. How 
near, or how far away, the actual remains of 
Sterne at length found a resting-place will 
probably never be known. 

More sudden than the call which summoned 
Sterne into the unseen, was that to which William 
Makepeace Thackeray answered. Only a few 
days before the end, he met his great rival 
Dickens on the steps of one of the London 
clubs. They passed in silence, for an estrange- 
ment had existed between the two for several 
years. But Thackeray could not endure that this 
should last any longer. Turning back, he went 
up to Dickens with outstretched hand, saying 
he could not bear to be on any save the old 
terms of friendship. Dickens hastened to grasp 
the offered hand, and the two had a few minutes' 
pleasant talk ere they parted — parted for ever. 

Two days before Christmas, Thackeray retired 
to rest earlier than usual, and in the watches 
of the night, alone, death called. *' And lo, 
he whose heart was as that of a little child had 
answered to his name, and stood in the presence 
of the Master." He was buried six days later 
in Kensal Green Cemetery, in the presence 
of a vast concourse of mourners. Near the grave 
stood Lewes, and Trollope, and Browning, and 

171 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Dickens, and many another famous in the annals 
of Victorian Hterature. When a year had passed, 
the aged mother of the novehst was laid beside 
her son in the same grave; and thirty years 
later it was opened again to receive the body 
of that wife from whom, because of her sad 
mental condition, Thackeray had been parted 
during tlie last twenty-three years of his life. 
Something of the gloom which overshadowed 
the life of Coleridge seems to abide with him 
in his resting-place, which is situated under- 
neath the chapel of the Highgate grammar 
school. It was in that favoured suburb of 
London, in the home of the Gillmans, that, 
it will be remembered, the poet spent the last 
eighteen years of his life, and when he died in 
1834 his grave was made in the ])urial-ground 
of the parish. Thirty years later, however, 
when the grammar-school was rebuilt, a part 
of that building was erected over the burial- 
ground, and from that time to this the vault 
in which Coleridge lies has been overshadowed 
in perpetual gloom. Nor is that all. The space 
around the vault has been utilized as a work- 
shop and a receptacle for all kinds of rubbish, 
and altogether the surroundings of this famous 
grave are little less than a disgrace. 

172 



BY FAMOUS GRAVES 

Coleridge, more than most sons of genius, 
seems to need that his resting-place shall not 
suggest sombre thoughts. Enough such are 







GEORGE ELIOT S GRAVE 



recalled by his life-story, in which lack of will 
wrought such havoc with matchless mental 
gifts. " I am dying," he wrote a little before 
the end came. " Is it not strange that, very 
recently, bygone images and scenes of early 

173 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

life have stolen into my mind like breezes blown 
from the spice-islands of Youth and Hope." 
Such images, to banish the gaunt spectres of 
memory, ought his grave to suggest, but never 
can so long as its sordid surroundings are allowed 
to remain in their present condition. How 
would Lamb have grieved over this gloomy 
grave, Lamb who in the short time he survived 
his friend was often murmuring, " His great and 
dear spirit haunts me — never saw I his like- 
ness, nor probably the world can see again." 
At the foot of the hill on the summit of which 
Coleridge lies in his melancholy tomb, is the 
beautiful Highgate Cemetery, where, under- 
neath a plinth of red granite, George Eliot 
was laid to rest close beside the grave of Lewes. 
Although she had been in delicate health for 
many years, and had felt the loss of Lewes very 
keenly, her marriage with Mr. Cross seemed 
for a time to renew her hold upon life. Unfor- 
tunately she caught a chill in a draughty concert- 
hall in London on a December afternoon, and 
in a few days the illness reached a fatal termina- 
tion. In her writing-case an unfinished letter 
was found, and its expression of tender sym- 
pathy for a friend upon whom a great sorrow had 
fallen was a fitting finis to the labour of that pen 

174 



BY FAMOUS GRAVES 

which had given delight and comfort to so many 
thousands. Wliile the doctors were around 
her bed, she whispered to her husband, " Tell 
them I have great pain in my left side," and then 
became unconscious and spoke no more. 

Defiant of the sleet and rain of a wild Decem- 
ber day, a great crowd attended the funeral, 
conspicuous among the mourners being the tall 
form of that brother from whom she had drawn 
the portrait of Tom TuUiver in *' The Mill on 
the Floss." One who was present in the chapel 
has told how impressive the ceremony was, 
especially at the moment when the preacher 
quoted the words of her own hymn, and re- 
minded his hearers how the great dead had 
joined 

" the choir invisible 
Whose music is the gladness of the world." 

Few graves in Highgate or any other cemetery 
hold so much of genius as that in which several 
members of the gifted Rossetti family are buried. 
The notable parents of those richly-endowed 
children rest here; and here also the body of 
Christina Rossetti was laid in the earth. The 
next grave contains the wife of Ford Maddox 
Brown, and an infant grandchild for whom a 

175 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

line from Christina's most unforgetable poem, 
" Remember or Forget," serves as epitaph. 

In the Rossetti vault the wife of Dante Gabriel 
Rossetti, the most famous of all that band, 
found her too early grave. No passage in the 
life of the painter-poet was so compact of 
romance and tragedy as the brief days of his 
wedded union with Elizabeth Siddal. She was 
an assistant in a London milliner's shop 
when first seen by a friend of Rossetti, who 
had accompanied his mother to the shop. 
Struck by her unusual beauty, he, through his 
mother, asked whether the young lady would 
consent to give him sittings, and it was when 
she was in his studio that Rossetti saw and fell 
in love with Miss Siddal. All lovers of his pic- 
tures are familiar with her appearance, for his 
Beatrice was thenceforward consistently painted 
from her. After ten years' courtship, they were 
married, but less than two years later she died, 
the immediate cause of death being an over- 
dose of laudanum. In the distraction of his 
grief, Rossetti placed in his wife's coffin the 
manuscript of a large quantity of his poems : 
" I have often," he said, "been writing at those 
poems when Lizzie was ill and suffering, and I 
might have been attending to her, and now they 

176 



S!>?<]cS]C>7ocacacS)cS3[Sic?<!c>?oc>?o[>^cS3(^i^<3cac>?oc>7o!>?<)iaca(^cS^ 





§ 

§= 
§> 
§> 
§> 
§> 

go 

§> 
§> 
§> 

§> 

go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 
go 



|(>^<3Cg3Cg3[>^<3C>^<3C^<3C>^[^C^C>^<3(>^<3C>^C^<3(>^^ 



BY FAMOUS GRAVES 

shall go." As he had no copies of these poems, 
his friends constantly urged him to consent to the 
manuscript being exhumed, and more than seven 
years later he reluctantly agreed. Two or three 
intimate friends undertook the gruesome task, 
which was carried out in the night by the light 
of a fire made beside the grave. When the coffin 
was raised and opened, the body was seen to 
be in a perfect state of preservation. The manu- 
script too, had suffered little by its long burial. 

Perhaps some day this strange midnight 
scene will be perpetuated by the hand of an 
artist, for the history of literature contains no 
more striking incident than that associated with 
the Rossetti grave. 

Among the tombs in Chiswick churchyard, 
close beside the Thames, the most notable and 
best-preserved is that which contains the remains 
of William Hogarth. In his home near by, the 
famous artist busied himself during his last 
days with designing a tail-piece for his works, 
that " Finis " which is not the least known of 
his pictures. Shortly after, towards the end of 
October, 1764, he was removed to his other house 
in Leicester Fields, weak in body but cheerful 
in mind. Here he found waiting for him a 
letter from his friend Benjamin Franklin, and 

177 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

his last occupation was to prepare a rough 
answer to that epistle. But the reply in its 
completed form never reached Philadelphia, 
for when the painter retired to bed he was 
seized with a distressing vomiting. Alarmed 
at his condition, he rang his bell with such 
violence as to tear the wire from the wall. In 
a few moments the summons was answered by 
Hogarth's cousin, Mary Lewis, and, in her arms, 
two hours later, he passed away. The monu- 
ment over his grave was not erected until seven 
years later, but since then it has been the object 
of unceasing care. It bears an inscription by 
Garrick, who probably penned more epitaphs 
than any other versifier of his time. 



178 



XI 
CONCERNING DICK TURPIN 



CONCERNING DICK TURPIN 

HAD it not been for the idealizing pen 
of Harrison Ainsworth it is likely the 
name of Dick Turpin would have been 
consigned to oblivion many years ago. The 
rehabilitation of the novelist was accomplished 
in the nick of time. Executed in 1739, the fame 
of that notorious highwayman had been kept 
alive by numerous chapbooks for three genera- 
tions, but was on the eve of extinction in the 
first quarter of the nineteenth century. At that 
period the old coaching days were becoming 
little more than a memory, and with their 
passing all the exciting legends of " the road " 
were also fading away. In a few more years 
the name and fame of Dick Turpin would have 
suffered no revival save in that unexplored under- 
world of hair-raising fiction frequented only 
by the small boy of lawless tastes. 

Then came the turn in Dick Turpin's for- 
tunes. The tales of his daring exploits were 
still fresh in the memory of Bulwer Lytton when, 

181 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

by the writing of " Paul Clifford," he resolved 
to demonstrate how the prisons and criminal 
laws of that period fostered " the habit of first 
corrupting the boy by the very punishment 
that ought to redeem him, and then hanging the 
man, at the first occasion, as the easiest way 
of getting rid of our own blunders." To point 
this moral and adorn this tale, Lytton conceived 
the case of an illegitimate son of a prosperous 
villain deserted in a low London slum and the 
victim of evil influences. No reader of " Paul 
Clifford " can fail to recall the squalor of the 
disreputable ale-house where the young hero 
of the story is discovered when the story opens. 
At the age of twelve he has learnt to read, but 
unfortunately he is applying that accomplish- 
ment in an unprofitable manner. *' Paul, my 
ben cull," asked his besotted foster-mother, 
*' what gibberish hast got there ? " " Turpin, 
the great highwayman," answered the lad, 
without lifting his eyes from the page. 

What particular version of Turpin's life 
was affected by Paul Clifford his creator does 
not stop to explain, but, obviously it was suffi- 
ciently exciting to prompt the use of that ad- 
jective usually reserved for such monarchs as 
Alexander and Alfred. That many another 

182 



CONCERNING DICK TURPIN 

boy beside Paul Clifford has made a similar 
misapplication of the word " great " has been 
due, as hinted above, to the zeal with which 
Harrison Ainsworth, noting the success which 
attended Lytton's effort, devoted himself to 
the task of combining romance with roguery. 

Probably in extenuation for the glowing 
colours in which, in the pages of " Rook wood," 
he painted the character and exploits of Turpin, 
Ainsworth explained that he was " the hero " 
of his boyhood. The novelist confessed to a 
life-long passion for highwaymen ; that as a lad 
he would listen by the hour while his father 
narrated the doings of " Dauntless Dick," that 
*' chief minion of the moor; " and that he had 
often lingered in ecstasy by those inns, and 
roadsides, and rivers traditionally associated 
with his lawless career. 

Naturally, all this enthusiasm ripened to 
resplendent blossom in the pages of " Rook- 
wood." Hardly has any other victim of the 
gallows been so richly garlanded with the 
flowers of rhetoric. It may be necessary later 
to destroy both their fragrance and beauty, but 
in the meantime a few of the choicest examples 
may be culled for temporary admiration. 

" Rash daring was the main feature of Tur- 

183 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

pin's character. Like our great Nelson he knew 
fear only by name." 

" Turpin was the ultimus Romanorum, the 
last of a race, which (we were almost about to 
say, we regret) is now altogether extinct. Several 
successors he had, it is true, but no name worthy 
to be recorded after his own. With him expired 
the chivalrous spirit which animated succes- 
sively the bosoms of so many knights of the road ; 
with him died away that passionate love of 
enterprise, that high spirit of devotion to the 
fair sex, which was first breathed upon the 
highway by the gay, gallant Claude Du-Val, 
the Bayard of the Road — le filou sans peur 
et sans reproche — but which was extinguished 
at last by the cord that tied the heroic Turpin 
to the remorseless tree." 

" The last of this race (for we must persist 
in maintaining that he was the last), Turpin, 
like the setting sun, threw up some parting rays 
of glory, and tinged the far highways with a 
lustre that may yet be traced like a cloud of 
dust raised by his horse's retreating heels." 

*' Beyond dispute he ruled as master of the 
road. His hands were, as yet, unstained with 
blood ; he w^as ever prompt to check the dis- 
position to outrage, and to prevent, as much as 

184 



CONCERNING DICK TURPIN 

lay in his power, the commission of violence by 
his associates." 

** Unequalled in the command of his steed, the 
most singular feat that the whole race of the 
annals of horsemanship has to record was 
achieved by him." 

" Turpin's external man was singularly pre- 
possessing. It was especially so in the eyes of 
the sex, amongst whom not a single dissentient 
voice was to be heard. All concurred in thinking 
him a fine fellow; could plainly read his high 
courage in his bearing; his good breeding in 
his debonnaire deportment; and his manly 
beauty in his extravagant red whiskers." 

Truly a gorgeous bouquet ! But Ainsworth 
had still more flowers to adorn his hero. The 
fourth book of " Rookwood " is devoted to the 
expansion of the hint given to the effect that 
Turpin by riding from London to York on his 
famous Black Bess placed to his credit " the 
most singular feat " in the annals of horseman- 
ship. Ainsworth was excessively proud of the 
twelve chapters in which he described that 
exploit. He put on record the name and locality 
of the house in which, in the space of less than 
twenty-four hours, he penned the hundred pages 
which tell of the ride to York. " Well do I 

185 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

remember," he said, " the fever into which I 
was thrown during the time of composition. 
My pen Hterally scoured over the pages. So 
thoroughly did I identify myself with the flying 
highwayman that, once started, I found it 
impossible to halt. Animated by kindred en- 
thusiasm, I cleared every obstacle in my path 
with as much facility as Turpin disposed of the 
impediments that beset his flight. In his com- 
pany, I mounted the hillside, dashed through the 
bustling village, swept over the desolate heath, 
threaded the silent street, plunged into the eddy- 
ing stream, and kept an onward course, without 
pause, without hindrance, without fatigue. With 
him I shouted, sang, laughed, exulted, wept. 
Nor did I retire to rest till, in imagination, I 
heard the bell of York Minster toll forth the 
knell of poor Black Bess," 

Perhaps a highwayman did once ride from 
London to York in fifteen hours. And such a 
feat, the covering of nearly two hundred miles 
on one horse in so brief a space of time, deserved 
to be sung in glowing lines. But there is no 
evidence to show that it was accomplished by 
Turpin. On the other hand it seems highly 
probable that the ride actually was achieved 
in 1676 by another highwayman, Nevison by 

186 



CONCERNING DICK TURPIN 

name, and that his feat was transferred to Tur- 
pin for the purpose of enhancing the glory of 
that precious hero. 

Whether Turpin was such a model as the 
novelist and schoolboy would have him to be is 
open to grave question. There can be no ques- 
tion, however, that he was a choice scoundrel. 
In the proclamation issued for his arrest in 
1737, he is described as a native of Thaxted, in 
Essex, but that assertion is wrong. He was an 
Essexman, it is true, but it was at Hempstead, 
and not at Thaxted, he first saw the light. Some 
years ago, the Crown Inn at Hempstead was 
adorned with a board recording the fact that 
Dick Turpin was born within its walls, and 
although the board is gone the fact remains as 
one indisputable item in the highwayman's 
history. The exact date of his birth will probably 
never be known, but the parish register attests 
that Richard Turpin, the son of John and Mary 
Turpin, was baptized in the village church on 
Sept. 21st, 1705. On the coffin in which he 
received a felon's burial at York in 1739 his age 
was given as twenty-eight, but the Hempstead 
record proves that he must have escaped the 
gallows for thirty-four years at least. 

And he might have escaped for many more 

187 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

years than that if he had resisted the temptation 
to shoot a game-cock. It happened in this 
manner: Turpin was hiding in Yorkshire, 
under the assumed name of John Pahner, and, 
by cleverly stealing horses and then selling them 
to gentlemen with whom he used to hunt, he 
managed both to provide himself with daily 
bread and maintain a considerable position in 
the world. His horse-thefts, the latest of which 
had yielded a harvest of a mare and her foal, 
were not found out, but the charge brought 
home to him of shooting a game-cock led to 
a train of evidence which brought the appropria- 
tion of the mare and her foal to his door. Arrest 
and trial followed, and then there gathered 
such a cloud of witnesses around Turpin, 
including several Hempstead natives who had 
known him from birth, that it was no difficult 
matter to hang the noose round his throat. 

Whoso would disentangle the real Dick Turpin 
from the mythical article must rely largely upon 
the evidence given at his trial in York, reported 
by one who described himself as a " possessor 
of shorthand." The Hempstead witnesses were 
almost indecently loquacious, and appear to 
have bent their best energies toward securing 
the conviction of their fellow-villager. Whether 

188 




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CONCERNING DICK TURPIN 

they were jealous of the fair fame of their 
native hamlet, or were merely taking a belated 
revenge for some of Dick's boyish escapades, 
does not appear. They told, however, how 
Dick's father was both an innkeeper and a 
butcher, how Dick was a wild spirit from his 
earliest years, how his parents tried to sober 
him by marriage, and how, by the appearance 
of a rejected letter at the post-ofRce, they had 
been able to identify the John Palmer in prison 
at York with the Richard Turpin too well 
known by them all. 

That proclamation of 1737 already alluded 
to ignores the " manly beauty " and " extrava- 
gant red whiskers " of Ainsworth, and tersely 
describes Turpin as " about thirty, five feet nine 
inches high, brown complexion, very much 
marked with the smallpox, his cheek-bones 
broad, his face thinner towards the bottom, his 
visage short, pretty upright, and broad about 
the shoulders." Other evidence goes to show 
that instead of being that paragon of chivalry 
described by the novelist, Turpin's turn of mind 
led him more " towards seating old w^omen 
on their fires, than meeting men in open 
fight." 

Of the actual bearing of the man in the 

189 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

presence of reliable witnesses there is no record 
more explicit than the account of his execution, 
which took place at York on April 7th, 1739. 
" The notorious Richard Turpin and Jack 
Stead," says the chronicler, ** were executed at 
York for horse-stealing. Turpin behaved in 
an undaunted manner; as he mounted the 
ladder, feeling his right leg tremble, he stamped 
it down, and, looking round about him with an 
unconcerned air, he spoke a few words to the 
Topsman, then threw himself off and expired in 
five minutes.'* With the natural conceit of his 
kind, he had provided that he should be lamented 
in some fashion, for he left three pounds ten 
shillings to five men who were to follow his cart 
as mourners, in addition to hat-bands and gloves 
for them and several others. The body, enclosed 
in a " neat coffin," and bearing the inscription, 
" J. P. 1739. R. T. aged 28," was buried in 
St. George's churchyard. Early the next morn- 
ing, however, it was " snatched," and carried 
off to the garden of one of the surgeons of the 
city. But the news soon spread, a mob quickly 
gathered, and, set upon saving the body from 
dissection, they placed it on a board and carried 
it back to the grave, this time taking the pre- 
caution to fill the coffin with lime, and so render 

190 



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turpin's oak. 



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CONCERNING DICK TURPIN 

any subsequent " snatching " a useless enter- 
prise. 

Opposite the Crown Inn at Hempstead there 
is a clump of trees planted in a circle, and known 
as Turpin's Ring. How the highwayman's 
name came to be associated with this curious 
cluster of trees is a mystery. It is also puzzling 
to account satisfactorily for their having been 
planted in this unusual shape. The local tra- 
dition has it that this was the village cock-pit, 
or even the scene of Hempstead bear-baiting 
in the good old times. 

Another Turpin relic may be seen at Dawkin's 
Farm, a mile or so from the village. This is 
merely the decaying trunk of the famous Hemp- 
stead oak, in the boughs of which Dick is 
reputed to have hidden from his pursuers. It 
would furnish but a meagre hiding-place to-day, 
but in Turpin's time it was a living forest- 
giant, with a girth of more than fifty feet, and 
branches spreading over a circumference of a 
hundred and five yards. 

For all his shortcomings, at this distance of 
time we can afford to be charitable to the memory 
of Dick Turpin. He may not deserve the plea of 
Schiller, which discerns a spirit of genius beneath 
the guise of every robber ; but, though his body 

191 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

hung in no gibbet, he may be included among 
those outcasts for whom Villon wrote the 
immortal epitaph : 

" The water of heaven has washed us clean. 

The sun has scorched us black and bare, 
Ravens and rooks they have pecked at our een, 

And lined their nests with our beards and hair; 

Round are we tossed, and here and there, 
This way and that at the wild wind's will. 
Not for a moment our bodies are still — 

Birds they are busy about my face. 
Be not as we, nor fare as we fare — 

Pray God pardon us out of His grace." 



192 



XII 
BEACONSFIELD 



BEACONSFIELD 

GEORGE BANCROFT, writing to Will- 
iam H. Prescott from England on a 
summer day in 1847, entertained his 
fellow historian with a glowing account of a 
visit he had paid to that corner of Buckingham- 
shire made famous by the poet Gray. One of 
the most delightful memories of that vacation 
was concerned with a drive to the seques- 
tered nook at Jordans where William Penn is 
buried. 

" On the w^ay back," Bancroft wrote, '* we 
drove through Beaconsfield. At the name I 
cried out Edmund Burke ; and straightway we 
went to the Gregories, traced the ruins of the old 
house, which was burned down : went into his 
garden, studied out his walks ; and tried to get 
a picture of his life. The larder abounded with 
good things : many a hogshead of ale was drunk 
there. No one had such merry harvest homes. 
His name was cherished all about: from all 

195 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

the villages round they came to his feasts. At 
the church which I entered, there was his pew, 
his grave, and the tablet in the wall to that part 
of him which was mortal. The churchyard has 
the tomb of Waller under a huge walnut tree : 
but Waller's huge monument does not move 
like the plain slab to Edmund Burke, who 
must have had a kind heart, easily touched with 
sympathy." 

No surprise will be felt that the American 
historian was more impressed by the grave of the 
statesman than by that of the poet. Apart 
altogether from the memory of Burke's sturdy 
advocacy of the cause of his country, Bancroft 
was hardly the type of man to whom the peculiar 
muse of Waller could appeal. But other visitors 
to the peaceful and picturesque town of Beacons- 
field are hardly like to make so marked a dis- 
tinction between the resting-places of the two 
men. 

Edmund Waller was a native of this district. 
His father was owner of the manor of Beacons- 
field, and he was born in 1606 in the nearby 
hamlet of Coleshill. As his father died a decade 
later the poet came into the possession of the 
estate at a tender age, and here, in 1687, he died 
and was buried. Thus, unlike most children of 

196 



BEACONSFIELD 

the muse, Waller was nurtured in affluence from 
his earliest days. As Oldham wrote : 

" Waller himself may thank inheritance 

For what he else had never got by sense." 

Whether that reflection on the poet's incapacity 
to achieve success in a monetary sense was 
deserved may be open to question. Indeed, one 
stubborn fact to the contrary may be adduced. 
When he had reached a marriageable age he 
determined to efl^ect the conquest of Anne 
Bankes, the wealthy heiress of a London mer- 
chant. But there were obstacles in his path. 
Other suitors had fixed their eyes on Mistress 
Anne as a prize worth striving for, and among 
these was a gentleman named William Crofts, 
who could count upon court influence to further 
his cause. But WaUer was not dismayed. He 
so engineered his plans as to secure the abduc- 
tion of the heiress, and shortly after Mistress 
Anne became his wife, greatly to the enrichment 
of his personal estate. 

Had Waller's first wife lived he would not 
have passed through the experience which has 
contributed largely to the perpetuation of his 
memory. After bearing the poet a son in 1633, 
the London heiress succumbed at Beaconsfield 

197 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

in giving birth to a daughter in the following 
year, leaving Waller a widower at the age of 
twenty-eight. 

It was as a once-married man, then, that he 
began his famous wooing of Sacharissa, otherwise 
Lady Dorothy Sidney, the eldest daughter of 
the Earl of Leicester. Waller has been frequently 
chided for presuming to look so high for a second 
wife. But it is difficult to see where the presump- 
tion comes in. His family was one of repute and 
antiquity; he was the owner of a considerable 
manor ; and his income must have been fully as 
large as that of many a peer in the seventeenth 
century. But notwithstanding these advantages, 
and such further commendable qualities as 
arose from his attractive personal appearance 
and his repute as a poet, his wooing of Sacharissa 
ended in failure. 

Perhaps he was not altogether surprised. In 
one of his earliest poems he is doubtful of his 
success. 

" As when, beyond our greedy reach, we see 
Inviting fruit on too subUme a tree; " 

and later he bids his messenger carve on a tree 
the record of his passion that it may be a monu- 
ment of i 

198 



BEACONSFIELD 

" His humble love whose hope shall ne'er rise higher. 
Than for a pardon that he dares admire." 

For a time, however, this premonition of 
ultimate failure had no chilling effect on his 
verse. He praises as liberally as though already 
secure in the possession of the object of his adora- 
tion. In none of the Sacharissa poems is there 
so warm a glow as in that entitled " On Her 
Coming to London," and as it has but lately 
been rescued from its manuscript obscurity a 
few of its stanzas may be cited here. 

" What's she, so late from Penshurst come. 
More gorgeous than the mid-day sun. 

That all the world amazes ? 
Sure 'tis some angel from above. 
Or 'tis the Cyprian Queen of Love 

Attended by the Graces. 

" O is't not Juno, Heaven's great dame. 
Or Pallas armed, as on she came 

To assist the Greeks in fight. 
Or Cynthia, that huntress bold. 
Or from old Tithon's bed so cold, 

Aurora chasing night? 

" No, none of these, yet one that shall 
Compare, perhaps exceed them all. 

For beauty, wit, and birth; 
As good as great, as chaste as fair, 

199 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

A brighter nymph none breathes the air, 
Or treads upon the earth." 

Sacharissa, however, evidently demanded in 
her husband something more than the abihty 
to pen a well-turned line. On her side the poetic 
passion of Waller appears to have been opposed 
by indifference. Slowly the truth of the situa- 
tion dawned upon Waller. At first he took 
what comfort he could from the reflection that 

" What he sung in his immortal strain, 
Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain ; " 

then he offered the lady the proud reminder that 

'* Her beauty, too, had perished, and her fame. 
Had not the muse redeemed them from the flame ; " 

and finally he reached a tone of stern remon- 
strance in the lines, 

" To thee a wild and cruel soul is given. 
More deaf than trees, and prouder than the heaven ! " 

But Waller, to transfer Fielding's phrase from 
one sex to the other, was not so " whimsically 
capricious " that one woman only could satisfy 
his amorous propensities. That memorial in 
Beaconsfield Church which is adorned with a 

200 



BEACONSFIELD 

heart in flames might have been set up in his 
honour instead of to another member of his 
family. Sacharissa seems to have had a rival 
before she wedded, and she certainly had suc- 
cessors speedily after that event. It was not, 
however, until 1644 that Waller found a second 
wife in the person of Mary Bracey, a lady of great 
beauty but who has left no impress on his poetry. 

Apart from his dalliance with Sacharissa, 
there was a potent reason why Waller allowed 
ten years to elapse between his first and second 
marriage. In 1640 he became involved as a 
member of Parliament in the events which led 
to the Civil War, and, after trying the hazardous 
task of sitting on the fence for a few years, was 
eventually discovered to be a participant in a 
plot in favour of the King. Several of his fellow- 
conspirators — one a brother-in-law — were exe- 
cuted, but Waller saved his skin by wholesale 
confession, a piteous plea for mercy, and by 
willingly accepting a sentence which included 
a fine of ten thousand pounds and banishment 
from England. 

But his exile only lasted eight years. The 
poet left his mother behind him at Beaconsfield, 
and she, as a relative of Oliver Cromwell, was 
no doubt largely responsible for her son being 

201 



UNTROl^DEN ENGLISH WAYS 

allowed to return thither in 1652. The Protector 
appears to have been a frequent guest at Beacons- 
field, and concerning one of his visits a story is 
told well calculated to arouse the flaming indigna- 
tion of Carlyle. Waller was wont to relate, so 
the record runs, that when Cromwell had been 
called to the door in the midst of their conversa- 
tions, he would overhear him repeating, " The 
Lord will reveal, the Lord will help," and 
kindred pious reflections ; for which he w^ould 
apologize when he came back, saying, " Cousin 
Waller, I must talk to these men after their own 
way," and would then resume the talk where 
it had been broken off. 

W^hile the Commonwealth regime lasted W^al- 
ler wisely remained in rural retirement at Bea- 
consfield. Ever a courtier, no matter who was 
in power, he occupied some of his leisure in 
penning his *' Panegyric to my Lord Protector," 
the poetic effort which Charles II remarked on 
as superior to Waller's lines on his own return 
to the throne, thus eliciting the famous retort — 
*' Sire, poets always succeed better in composing 
fiction than in adorning truth." The King was 
a penetrating critic ; Waller's lines on Cromwell 
have far more poetic value than those on the 
*' happy return;" indeed, waiving the note of 

202 



BEACONSFIELD 

flattery by which they are pervaded, they betray 
greater evidence of genius than any other effort 
of the poet. 

With the re-estabhshment of the monarchy 
Waller returned to Parliament and to those 
gatherings of wit and fashion which had known 
him in earlier years. Thus it happened that he 
met Sacharissa again, now a widow. The 
passing years had altered them both. *' When, 
I wonder," the lady asked, " will you write such 
beautiful verses to me ? " To which Waller 
rejoined, much to the horror of Taine in a later 
age, " WTien, Madam, you are as young and 
handsome as you were then." 

To Waller, as to many more, years brought the 
philosophic mind. In his peaceful home at 
Beaconsfield he was able, from the vantage 
ground of more than eighty years, to look back 
unperturbed on the passions which had vexed 
his soul in earlier days. And the pen which 
had busied itself with the trifles of an hour, had 
toyed with love and been traitor to loyalty, is 
found moving to such sober strains as these: 

" The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; 
So calm are we when passions are no more ! 
For then we know how vain it was to boast 
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. 

203 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes 
Conceal the emptiness which age descries." 

Even the trees at Beaconsfield had their lesson 
for the aged poet. He told a correspondent, 
however, that he had not much joy in wandering 
through his woods, because he found the trees 
as bare and withered as himself, with this 
difference — 

" That shortly they shall flourish and wax green. 
But I still old and withered must be seen, 
Yet if vain thoughts fall, like their leaves away, 
The nobler part improves with that decay." 

As the inevitable end drew near the poet 
bought a small house at Coleshill, the hamlet 
where he was born, to placate his poetic senti- 
ment that " a stag, when he is hunted, and near 
spent, always returns home." But it was in his 
manor house of Etall Barn at Beaconsfield, and 
not at Coleshill, that Waller died. And there, 
in a corner of the churchyard, beneath a lusty 
tree, he was laid to rest at last. His massive 
monument, a large sarcophagus of w^hite marble 
with four urns on a central pyramid, wears well. 
More than two centuries have passed since it 
was reared over the remains of Sacharissa's 

204 



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THE GRAVE OF WALLER. 



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BEACONSFIELD 

lover, and it bids fair to outlive other centuries 
yet. Unfortunately his contention that 

" 'Tis fit the English reader should be told, 

In his own language, what this tomb does hold," 

has not been respected in the case of his own 
memorial. Each of the inscriptions on the four 
sides of the monument is couched in Latin, so 
that it is only one here and there of the visitors 
to Beaconsfield who learns how high was the 
poetic fame of Waller at the time of his death. 

How striking is the contrast between the 
copious and sonorous Latin on Waller's tomb 
and the brief and simple English of the tablet 
to Edmund Burke ! The latter must be sought 
inside the church, on the wall of the south aisle, 
and near the pew where the great publicist used 
to worship. That this memorial is so unpre- 
tentious, that, in fact, this retired church should 
have been chosen for the honour of Burke's 
resting-place, was in obedient harmony with the 
illustrious statesman's own wishes. When a 
young man he had expressed a preference for 
" the southern corner of a country churchyard " 
as his place of rest, desiderating, however, that 
his remains should " mingle with kindred dust ; " 
and as death drew nigh he stipulated in his will 

205 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 



for a simple funeral, adding, " I desire that no 
monument beyond a middle-sized tablet, with 
a small and simple inscription on the church- 
wall, or on the 
flag-stone, be 
erected. I say 
this," he conclu- 
ded, " because I 
know the partial 
kindness to me 
of some of my 
friends; but I 
have had, in my 
lifetime, but too 
much noise and 
compliment." 

Burke was 
thirty-eight years 
old when he 
made Beacons- 
field his country 
home. The pur- 
chase of Grego- 
ries, the name of his estate, was made from 
the Waller manor, and the actual transaction 
is said to have taken place in the poet's man- 
sion. Various explanations have been offered 

206 




BURKE S MEMOUIAL IN BEACONSFIELD 
CHURCH 



BEACONSFIELD 

to account for Burke, whose finances were 
never in a flourishing condition, being pos- 
sessed of the twenty thousand pounds paid 
for Gregories, and one version asserts that 
the sum was placed at his disposal by a peer 
whom he had served politically. The narrator 
of this story affirmed that he was present 
at the purchase, and was wont to describe 
** the brilliancy which flashed from the eye 
of Burke on his first grasping the precious 
boon." 

However the great orator became the owner of 
Gregories, his advent to this beautiful corner 
of Buckinghamshire was greatly to the advan- 
tage of the estate and Beaconsfield in general. 
Although he has been dead more than a century 
local tradition still testifies to his beneficient 
influence. Not only did he carry out notable 
improvements on his own property, and prove 
an admirable purveyor for his own table, but he 
took a paternal interest in all the workmen of 
the neighbourhood and spared himself no eft'orts 
in advancing their interests. 

Many notable persons of the eighteenth 
century, Dr. Johnson being of the number, came 
as guests to Beaconsfield, all of whom would 
doubtless have cheerfully subscribed to the 

207 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

truthfulness of Mary Leadbeater's poetic record 
of such an experience. 

" Lo ! there the mansion stands in princely pride; 
The beauteous wings extend on either side; 
Unsocial pomp flies from the cheerful gate, 
Where hospitality delights to wait; 
A brighter grace her candid smile bestows 
Than the majestic pillars' comely rows. 
Enter these ever-open doors, and find 
All that can strike the eye, or charm the mind: 
Painting and sculpture there their pride display, 
And splendid chambers deck'd in rich array. 
But these are not the honours of the dome 
Where Burke resides and strangers find a home; 
To whose glad hearth the social virtues move, 
Paternal fondness and connubial love. 
Benevolence unwearied, friendship true, 
And wit unforced, and converse ever new, 
And manners, where the polished court we trace, 
Combined with artless nature's noble grace. 
See where amid the tow'ring trees he moves, 
And with his presence dignifies the groves: 
Approach with silent awe the wondrous man. 
While his great mind revolves some mighty plan; 
Yet fear not from his brow a frown austere. 
For mild benevolence inhabits there; 
And while thine eye feasts on his graceful mien. 
Think on the worth that lies within unseen. 
And own that Heav'n in wisdom has enshrined 
In the most perfect form the noblest mind." 

Flattering as this picture is, independent 

208 



BEACONSFIELD 

testimony proves that it was much more than the 
effort of a guest trying to offer some recompense 
for generous hospitality. Each separate record 
of Burke's life at Beaconsfield corroborates 
some specific detail of Mary Leadbeater's glow- 
ing tribute. Especially is it true that " parental 
fondness and connubial love " were constantly 
in evidence there. The record should have 
included brotherly affection also, for Burke was 
hardly more deeply attached to his wife and son 
than he was to that brother Richard who shares 
the Beaconsfield grave. 

Keen as were the sufferings which the patriotic 
statesman experienced because of the untoward 
course of events in America and France, those 
public sorrows faded into insignificance before 
the private griefs which attacked him on the 
side of his domestic affections. Twice within 
six months death exacted its relentless toll in 
the persons of two who were nearest to his heart. 
The first victim was his younger brother, 
Richard, who for many years had been a mem- 
ber of the Beaconsfield household and in all 
other respects an intimate sharer of Burke's 
friendships and pursuits. Twenty years earlier 
Goldsmith had immortalized Richard Burke in 
his " Retaliation," that lively portrait-gallery 

209 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

which preserves the characteristics of so many 
notable men of the eighteenth century: 

" Here lies honest Richard whose fate I must sigh at; 
Alas that such frolic should now be so quiet ! 
What spirits were his ! What wit and what whim ! 
Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb; 
Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball, 
Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all ! 
In short, so provoking a devil was Dick, 
That we wished him full ten times a day at Old Nick ; 
But missing his mirth and agreeable vein. 
As often we wished to have Dick back again." 

It is not difficult to imagine how great a blank 
in the small circle at Beaconsfield the loss of 
so sprightly a companion would create. But a 
far heavier loss fell upon Burke when, in August, 
1794, his only son was taken from his side. All 
his hopes had been centered in him. Great as 
may have been and probably were the gifts of 
the younger Burke, named Richard after his 
uncle, the father's fond affection magnified them 
into a brilliance far exceeding his own, and he 
consequently looked upon his child not only as 
the heir of his own renown but as destined to 
achieve a still greater fame. Burke, too, had the 
passion for " founding a family," which is so 
often the one weakness of public men, and the 

210 



BEACONSFIELD 

remorseless extinction of that hope added poign- 
ancy to his loss. How deeply that loss was 
felt is evident on page after page of Burke's 
letters during the few remaining years of his 
own life. " My heart is very sick," he writes 
to one correspondent ; " I am as a man dead," 
to another; and in his Letter to a Noble Lord 
he calls to his aid every image of desolation: 
" The storm has gone over me ; and I lie like 
one of those old oaks which the late hurricane 
has scattered about me. I am stripped of all 
my honours ; I am torn up by the roots and lie 
prostrate on the earth. I am alone. I have 
none to meet my enemies in the gate." 

So heavy a sorrow could not be borne for long. 
After the death of his son Burke did not dine 
out of his own house; henceforth in travelling 
from Gregories to London he avoided passing 
through Beaconsfield, because he could not 
endure the sight of the church where Richard 
was buried. But everything conspired to remind 
him of his loss. While walking one day in his 
fields Burke found himself approached by an 
aged horse which had been a great favourite 
with his son. The animal drew nearer, is said 
to have spent some moments in surveying his 
person, and then to have rested his head upon 

21] 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

his bosom. WTiat response could the afflicted 
Burke make other than to throw his arms around 
the horse's neck and give way to a flood of tears ? 
But for Burke himself the days were now 
rapidly shortening. In February, 1797, he was 
persuaded to go to Bath for the benefit of the 
waters, but as a four months' sojourn there could 
do nothing for the sorrow which was sapping his 
life, he returned, at the end of May, to Beacons- 
field, "to be so far at least on my way to the 
tomb." A little more than a month later he 
found the peace he desired, rejoining in the 
grave that aflFectionate brother and that adored 
son whom he had missed so sorely. Nearly 
fifteen years after Mary Burke was laid in the 
same tomb, and thus at last the " eloquent 
statesman and sage " had his wish that his 
ashes should " mingle with kindred dust." 



212 



XIII 
THE NORFOLK BROADS 



THE NORFOLK BROADS 

A COUNTY instead of a city, massive 
wherries and dainty yachts instead of 
gondolas, mill -towers and church 
steeples instead of palaces — such are the differ- 
ences between Venice and Norfolk. But the 
essential likeness is the same; both in the city 
of the Adriatic and the English county the chief 
highways are waterways. Where the choice of 
transit lies between the hard roadway and the 
limpid path of river or Broad, the Norfolk man 
never hesitates which to take. 

But what are the Norfolk Broads ? Roughly 
speaking, they are a series of small fresh water 
lakes connected by rivers and dykes. The word 
" Broad " is generally interpreted by its surface 
meaning, that is, a piece of water which has 
broadened out from its original narrow channel. 
Altogether these Broads and their connecting 
rivers furnish forth some two hundred miles of 
waterway, providing unlimited scope for yacht- 
ing, fishing, or shooting. 

215 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

There are two methods of seeing the Norfolk 
Broads. The visitor may hire one of the char- 
acteristic boats of the district and thread the 
two hundred miles of waterway in as leisurely 
a fashion as befits the time at his disposal; or 
he may make his home in one of the many farm 
or private houses which have opened their doors 
to holiday keepers, and use that as the centre of 
his explorations. Every man to his choice. If 
it is a family holiday party, the boat method has 
its inherent diflSculties and discomforts ; if the 
party comprises only two or more young men 
bent on an unconventional vacation, a few 
weeks' experience of fresh-water yachting pos- 
sesses undeniable attractions. Perhaps the real 
charm of the Broads does not reveal itself to 
those who make choice of the house instead of 
the boat; they know nothing of the luxury of 
being lulled to sleep by the soughing of the wind- 
swayed rushes, or the gentle lapping of the 
water against the boat's side; not theirs the 
keen-edged appetite which relishes even the 
most primitively-served meal amid unusual sur- 
roundings. 

Wroxham is a favourite starting-place with 
those who elect the boat method of visiting the 
Broads; but it is by no means an ideal centre 

216 



THE NORFOLK BROADS 



for those who wish the unworn beauty of Broad- 
land to play upon their town-jaded spirits. 
Because it is such a popular port of departure 
it has taken on too many of the airs of a tourist 
resort ; it has all the bad qualities of urbe in rus. 
There are shops in 
the transition stage 
from the rural store 
to the city empo- 
rium; hotels with 
"pleasure gardens" 
and bands " made 
in Germany;" 
merry-go-rounds 
which aim at 
greater conquests 
than village fairs; 
Aunt-Sallys which 
too painfully recall 
Bank Holiday 

memories of Greenwich Park and Hampstead 
Heath. One does not travel a hundred miles 
from London for such commonplaces as these. 
But because Wroxham is a good place to get 
away from, it may be recommended as the 
starting-point for a cruise among the Broads. 
Here, where the river Bure widens out to a 

217 




AT WROXHAM 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

respectable breadth, boats are plentiful, though 
it would be the height of folly to leave the 
chartering of one's craft until the hour of arrival. 
Such a policy would probably achieve an 
unlooked for Nemesis either in a vain effort to 
secure a yacht, or in such an experience of 
Hobson's choice as would not add to the pleasure 
of the trip. 

Quickly will the visitor to the Broads make the 
acquaintance of one of the most typical words of 
the district, the word " Staithe " ; but he will 
probably reflect little on the period of English 
history from which it has survived. Those 
Danish hordes which the pirate fleets of the 
Norwegian fiords poured upon the coast of East 
Anglia in the ninth century brought with them 
copious additions to the place-names of the 
districts they spoiled, and this word *' Staithe " 
is one of the memorials of their visits. Originally, 
perhaps, the word meant an abode or station; 
but it soon took on a new shade of meaning by 
being used to describe a portion of the fore- 
shore of a river kept up by faggots — and hence 
its application to-day to the innumerable landing 
places of the rivers and dykes in the Broads. 
Sometimes these staithes are the public quays 
of villages or towns, but in many cases — ask 

218 



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THE NORFOLK BROADS 

at Catfield — they are the private wharves of 
wherry owners. Even in the latter circumstances 
the holiday seeker will only have his own 
behaviour to blame if he is not made free of 
their use. 

Save for that held at Wroxham, the regattas 
of the various Broads are simply rural festivities 
of an aquatic kind. They make no stir in the 
yachting world; their rivalries find no record 
in the London press. Each competitor is known 
to each, and all to the spectator. An amateur 
band, a few stalls sacred to ginger-beer, biscuits 
and vinegar-soused whelks, a liberal provision 
of wicker-cased gallon jars of ale, a display of 
the most suitable summer attire procurable from 
rural stores — such are the outward furnishings 
of a Broads regatta. But enjoyment loses none 
of its edge. Doctor measures his sailing skill 
with rector, schoolmaster strives for victory with 
farmer, and all will hoard up memories of the 
day as food for village gossip until the revolving 
year brings back the opportunity to reverse 
defeats or win new renown. 

Amid the fleets of snow-white-sailed yachts 
which crowd Broads and rivers alike during the 
summer months, the characteristic wherry of the 
district asserts its individuality with dignified per- 
nio 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

sistence. These sturdy craft, sometimes of sev- 
enty tons burden, constitute one of the chief 
carrying powers of the Broads, and the adroit 
manner in which they are sailed up narrow dykes 
or quanted along in a dead calm impresses the 




A NORFOLK DYKE 



visitor as a unique exhibition of sailing skill. 
Although they seem so unwieldy, these wherries 
can attain a speed of seven or eight miles an 
hour in a strong wind, and their huge brown 
sails often lend to the landscape amid which 
they move a tone of warmth very agreeable to 
the eye. 

One of the essential features of the Broads 

220 



THE NORFOLK BROADS 

landscape is provided by the dyke; too fre- 
quently its presence is aggressively felt. When 
the wind dies away, the towing which has to 
supply its place as motive power is often abruptly 
punctuated by the too persistent dyke, just too 
wide to jump and yet narrow enough to make a 
return to the boat wear the air of a cowardly 
retreat. A judicious distribution of wide planks 
among the Norfolk Broads would tend to the 
diminution of profane language. But even these 
dykes have their uses for beauty as well as 
utility. On their placid waters the broad leaves 
of the water lilies lave themselves in freshness 
and open out their golden and snowy blossoms 
to charge the air with a perfume as rare in 
quality as a nightingale's song. There are 
degrees of dignity in Norfolk dykes. The 
narrowest merely serve as drains for fields or 
give access to a private landing; the broadest 
are the highways of the trading wherries and 
lead to the ports of villages. 

Horning Ferry, with its quaint old inn, with 
its band of singing children who cultivate melody 
for the base reward of coppers, has always been 
a popular halting place with visitors to the 
Broads. Certainly along the reaches of the 
Bure from Wroxham to St. Benet's Abbey there 

221 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

are few riverside pictures so arresting as Horning 
Street and Horning Ferry — the former with 
its picturesqTiely massed warehouses and wind- 
mill, the latter with its bosky trees and reduplica- 
tion of shadows in the river's placid mirror. At 
the Ferry many a merry summer evening party 
has met to live over again the delights of the day ; 
and this old-world hostel must linger in the 
memory of thousands who owe to it 

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet. 
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart. 

A young lad fresh from India, who spent a 
holiday in the Broads, is reported to have em- 
ployed all his days in making toy windmills. 
That was his tribute to the presiding genius of 
the district. It was quite natural ; even the most 
inattentive observer cannot fail to be impressed 
by the ubiquity of windmills among the Broads. 
Of course the bulk of them were built for 
drainage purposes, and it is often possible to 
map out the courses of rivers by these mills. 
But steam is fatal to the picturesque here, as 
it has been in other phases of English rural 
life. Most of the old windmills are falling into 
decay, and ere many generations have gone they 
will have vanished altogether. Happily the 



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THE NORFOLK BROADS 

quaint boatyards which relieve the banks of 
river and Broad here and there have a more 
tenacious hold on. existence : 

Covering many a rood of ground, 
Lay the timber piled around; 
Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak. 
And scattered here and there, with these. 
The knarred and crooked cedar knees. 

No anglers' stories wear such an air of fable 
as those which are told among the Norfolk 
Broads. The most plentiful fish is the bream ; 
and here it is possible to realize that French 
proverb which measures the warmth of one's 
welcome of a friend by the quantity of bream 
in one's pond. Old Izaac asserts that in water 
and air to its taste the bream will grow as " fat 
as a hog ; " and the fact that the fish sometimes 
attains a weight of ten pounds proves the aquatic 
and atmospheric conditions of the Broads to 
be wholly to its liking. Eels, too, must find 
these waters congenial to existence; and many 
tons of that savoury fish find they way from the 
Norfolk Broads to the London market. The 
eel-fisher's primitive home, a derelict boat with 
a rude hut covering it in, often greets the voyager 
from amid its thicket of rushes, a suggestive 

223 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

survival of a time when the conditions of life 
were simpler and ruder than in this twentieth 
century. 

It is commonly believed that some of the 
Broads are fast growing up. One authority on 
the district points out with reference to a certain 
Broad that the vegetation grows rankly and dies 
down, and so adds a layer both in thickness and 
extent to the shallow margin. When, by a 
repetition of this process, the mud reaches the 
surface, the roots of the reeds and grasses make 
it firmer each year, until at last it can be drained 
and turned into dry land. Stalham Broad is 
said to be illustrating this process; but an 
'* oldest inhabitant " scornfully protested that 
the Broad is as big to-day as at any time within 
his memory. Womack Broad has had a curious 
experience. At one period this consisted of 
nearly fifty acres of water, but during a storm 
a floating island was blown into its midst and, 
anchoring on a shallow spot, has turned some of 
its area into a boggy swamp. Thus it has come 
about that Womack is now little more than a 
narrow river channel. 

As might be expected, the architecture of the 
Broads, both domestic and ecclesiastical, har- 
monizes with the spirit of the district. It is true 

224 



THE NORFOLK BROADS 

that at such places as Wroxham there are not 
wanting examples of Ruskin's pet abomination, 
modern villas " with patent every things going 
by themselves everywhere; " and the " restorer " 
has been at work on some of the churches. 
But the further one penetrates into the heart of 
Broadland the less one sees of modern influences. 
The churches, with their round towers and 
thatched roofs — of which that of Potter Heig- 
ham is a good type — recreate a mediaeval 
atmosphere and enable us to bridge that " gulf 
of mystery " that lies between us and the old 
English. The cottages, with their bright little 
windows and trim gardens stocked with the old 
favourite out-of-fashion flowers, make the heart 
to fall in love with rural life; and here and 
there a homestead peeps from amid embowering 
trees to recall the home memories which are 
awakened by Hood's well-known lines : 

I remember, I remember. 
The house where I was born. 
The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn; 
He never came a wink too soon, 
Nor brought too long a day; 
But now, I often wish the night 
Had borne my breath away. 

&25 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

When at length the last mile has been sailed 
and a tender farewell taken of these peaceful 
meadows and reed-bound waters, one realizes 
how impossible it is to convey to others any 
adequate idea of the subtle charm of Broadland. 
Among the granite and slate mountains of 
Central Europe there grows, in the clefts of 
rocks and in dimly-lit caves, a delicate little 
plant which has been christened with the name 
of " Luminous Moss." If the botanist peers 
into these dusky recesses, he will see, amid the 
gloom, innumerable golden-green points of light, 
which sparkle and gleam as though small 
emeralds had been scattered over the floor. But 
if he grasps some of these alluring jewels and 
examines his prize in the glare of the open day, 
he will find that he has nothing in his hand but 
dull lustreless earth. The Luminous Moss 
reveals its beauty only when seen amid its 
natural surroundings. It is so with the Norfolk 
Broads. No words can express their peculiar 
charm ; no pictures can hope to delineate their 
quiet beauty. 



226 



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XIV 
IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 



IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

BE -COB WEBBED as is the face of Eng- 
land with railway lines, there still remain a 
few tracts of land where the steel net- work 
is less closely woven. This is notably the case 
in that triangular corner of the south of Lincoln- 
shire known as the Fens. 

Taken as a whole, that county is less familiar 
to the native or the visitor than any other dis- 
trict of England. Save for its capital city, and 
an isolated town here and there, Lincolnshire 
stands either strangely outside the pale of 
intimate acquaintance or is known only to be 
mis-known. Especially is this true of the Fens. 
Notwithstanding the spread of knowledge and 
the increase of travel, nine persons out of ten 
still probably labour under the delusion that 
*' to live in Lincolnshire means little short of 
floundering in a swa"mp and shivering with 
ague." It is beyond question that " the Fens 
have obtained a world-wide notoriety; and a 
general, though very erroneous, impression pre- 

229 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

vails among those who do not know the county, 
that this part of Lincolnshire is a dull and dreary 
land, to be avoided by all except those whom 
necessity or the calls of business compel to visit 
its unattractive scenery." 

How tenaciously an ill-reputation persists ! 
To-day's opinion of the Fens is little more than 
an echo of that entertained successively by the 
Roman and Norman conquerors of Britain. 
Judging from casual remarks in Tacitus and 
other writers, when the Romans descended 
on Britain this district was little more than a 
vast morass with a few scattered islands on which 
the Fen folk passed a semi-amphibious existence. 
No wonder the district became a camp of refuge 
for the Britons. The hunted Britons, as Mar- 
cellinus records, " not dwelling in the towns 
but in cottages within fenny places, compassed 
with thick woods, having hidden whatsoever 
they had most estimation of, did more annoyance 
to the wearied Romans than they received from 
them." 

Centuries later the Norman invaders were 
held at bay as their Roman forerunners had 
been. When William the Conqueror had all 
the rest of England at his feet, the Fens re- 
mained unsubdued. " What the rock and defile 



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IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

were to the mountaineer, the reed field and 
mere were to the Fenman — his home, the 
source of his subsistence, and his defence in 
seasons of oppression or misfortune." Hither, 
then, as to a final stronghold, resorted the last 
Saxon defiers of the Norman invaders. " This 
land," as Dugdale noted, " environed with fens 
and reed plecks was impassable; so that they 
feared not the invasion of an enemy, and in con- 
sequence of the strength of this place, by reason 
of the said water encompassing it, divers of 
the principal nobility of the English nation had 
recourse unto it as their greatest refuge against 
the strength and power of the Norman Con- 
queror." 

In the annals of patrotism there are no more 
stirring pages than those which tell how Here- 
ward, the last of the English, resisted the power 
of William the Conqueror in the Fens of Lincoln- 
shire. For seven long years, as Kingsley tells, 
he and his stout-hearted followers held their 
own against the Norman invader, and fought 
till there were none left to fight. " Their bones 
lay white on every island in the Fens; their 
corpses rotted on the gallows beneath every 
Norman keep; their few survivors crawled 
into monasteries, with eyes picked out, or hands 

231 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

and feet cut off; or took to the wild woods 
as strong outlaws. . . . But they never really 
bent their necks to the Norman yoke." 

Romans and Normans, then, had good cause 
to hold the Fens in abhorrence. But that the 
evil repute of those far-off times should persist 
in these changed and peaceful years is inex- 
cusable. All those qualities which made the 
Fens an ideal refuge for the oppressed have dis- 
appeared. Long centuries ago they were dyked 
and drained, tilled and fenced, until now they 
have " a beauty as of the sea, of boundless 
expanse and freedom. For always, from the 
foot of the wolds," continues Kingsley, " the 
green flat stretched away, illimitable, to an 
horizon where, from the roundness of the earth, 
the distant trees and islands were hulled down 
like ships at sea. The firm horse-fen lay, 
bright green, along the foot of the wold; be- 
yond it, the browner peat, or deep fen ; and 
among it dark velvet alder beds, long lines of 
reed-rond, emersed in spring and golden under 
the autumn sun; shining river-reaches; broad 
meres dotted with a million fowl, while the 
cattle waded along their edges after the rich 
sedge-grass, or wallowed in the mire through 
the hot summer day. Here and there, too, upon 

232 



IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

the far horizon, rose a tall line of ashen trees, 
marking some island of firm rich soil. Here 
and there, too, as at Ramsey and Crowland, 
the huge ashes had disappeared before the axes 
of the monks, and a minster tower rose over 
the fen, amid orchards, gardens, cornfields, 
pastures, with here and there a tree left standing 
for shade, — * Painted with flowers in the spring,' 
with ' pleasant shores embosomed in still lakes,' 
as the monk-chronicler of Ramsey has it, those 
islands seemed to such as the monk terrestrial 
paradises. Overhead the arch of heaven spread 
more ample than elsewhere, as over the open 
sea; and what vastness gave, and still gives, 
such effects of cloudland, of sunrise and sun- 
set, as can be seen nowhere else within these 
isles." 

Strangely enough, it was not left to Kingsley 
to discover the beauty of the Fens. Despite 
the popular impression that this district is " a 
dull and dreary land," it would be possible to 
compile an anthology in its praise. For ex- 
ample, so long ago as the twelfth century Henry 
of Huntington wrote : " This fenny country 
is very pleasant and agreeable to the eye, watered 
by many rivers which run through it, and adorned 
with many roads and islands." Earlier still 

233 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

William of Malmsbury described the Fens as 
*' a very paradise and a heaven for the beauty 
and delight thereof, the very marshes bearing 
goodly trees. . . . There is such abundance 
of fish as to cause astonishment to strangers, 
while natives laugh at their surprise. Water 
fowl are so plentiful that persons may not only 
assuage their hunger with both sorts of food, 
but can eat to satisfy for a penny." Nor should 
the eulogy of Fuller be overlooked, whose quaint 
verdict runs thus : " As God hath, to use the 
apostle's phrase, tempered the body together, 
not making all eye or all ear, but assigning each 
member the proper ofiice thereof, so the same 
Providence hath so wisely blended the benefits 
of this county that, take collective Lincolnshire 
and it is defective in nothing." 

Naturally, neither of these encomiums touches 
upon just that characteristic of the Fens which 
has the most potent charm for the visitor to-day. 
All that Henry of Huntingdon, and William 
of Malmsbury, and Charles Kingsley have 
written in praise of the peculiar natural beauty 
of the Fens is strictly true ; here may be enjoyed 
as sunny skies, as clear starfight-nights, as gor- 
geous cloudscapes, as in any district of Eng- 
land ; but this peaceful, remote land has a more 

234 



IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

subtle attraction still. Nowhere in England is 
it possible to come into such close contact with 
a time and a people belonging so essentially to 
the past. *' Between us and the old English," 
as Froude has remarked in sentences of rare 
charm, " there lies a gulf of mystery which the 
prose of the historian will never adequately 
bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagi- 
nation can but feebly penetrate to them. Only 
among the aisles of the cathedral, only as we 
gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their 
tombs, some faint conceptions float before us 
of what these men were when they were alive; 
and perhaps in the sound of church-bells, that 
peculiar creation of mediaeval age, which falls 
upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world." 
Thanks to its aloofness from the outside 
world, which is guarded by the sparsity of 
railway communication, the Fen district of 
Lincolnshire knows little of the changes wrought 
by the passing of time. Here the centuries have 
follow^ed each other in almost alterationless 
succession. Since those years, remote in them- 
selves, when the Fens were drained, when these 
marshy acres were reclaimed from the dominion 
of wide-spreading waters, when the wayward 
rivers were restrained within high banks, and the 

235 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

haunts of fish and water-fowl were transformed 
into golden cornfields, the aspect of the country- 
side has known no change. For still longer 
years has this been true of the handiwork of 
man. 

To visit Crowland in a sympathetic spirit 
is to step back into the vanished world of the 
old English. Even if the pilgrim makes such 
a concession to modern methods as to order his 
approach from the nearest railway station, that 
railway station is so inconspicuous, so slumberous 
for most of the day, and so soon out of sight and 
hearing, that the dominance of the present need 
not persist for long. As he traverses the miles 
of level Fenland that intervene it will be strange 
if his spirit is not rightly attuned for the unal- 
loyed enjoyment which Crowland has in store. 
Far away on the horizon the tall grey tower of 
Crowland Abbey rears itself out of a verdant 
landscape, " a poem in stone, laden with ancient 
legend and fraught with misty history." Nor 
will the wayfarer fail to be impressed by that 
brooding silence which a sympathetic pilgrim 
noted as the most striking quality of the dis- 
trict. " On every side the level Fenland stretched 
broad as the sea, and to the eye appearing almost 
as broad and free; and from all this vast low- 



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IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

land tract came no sound except the hardly to 
be distinguished mellow murmuring of the wind 
among the nearer sedges and trees. The river 
flowed on below us in sluggish contentment with- 
out even an audible gurgle ; no birds were singing, 
and, as far as we could see, there were no birds 




ON THE WELLAND 



to sing; and in the midst of this profound 
stillness our very voices seemed preternaturally 
loud." 

On the waters of that sluggish river, however, 
— the Welland which moves ever on to the sea 
between its weed and willow-veiled banks — 
the eye which has gazed upon the past can 
behold the shadowy outlines of the barge which, 
nine centuries ago, bore the monk-attended bier 
of Hereward to its rest in the minster of the 
Fens. 

237 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

And on by Porsand and by Asendyke, 
By winding reaches on, and shining meres 
Between grey reed-ronds and green alder-beds, 
A dirge of monks and wail of women rose 
In vain to Heaven for the last Englishman. 

Nor will the imagination rest on that picture 
as its remotest goal. Passing lightly over the 
years it will gaze back four other centuries, 
and recall how Guthlac, a brave yet gentle 
youth of the royal race of Mercia, betook him- 
self hither that he might make his peace with 
God. Nigh twelve centuries have passed since 
this royal recluse found a biographer through 
whose vivid pages we can re-picture the " fen 
of unmeasured mickleness " to which Guthlac 
fled. " There stretch out unmeasured marshes, 
now a swart waterpool, now foul running streams, 
and eke many islands and reeds, and hillocks, 
and thickets, and with manifold windings, wide 
and long, it spreads out up to the northern sea." 

Equally direct is the story this biographer 
tells to account for Guthlac seeking refuge here. 
With his dawning manhood there came the 
memory of the great deeds heroes had wrought, 
and he forthwith resolved to emulate their ex- 
ploits. So Guthlac gathered to his standard a 
troop of daring spirits, and for nine winters 

238 



I 



IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

he and his men ravaged the country far and wide. 
But suddenly there came a change. " It 
happened one night, on coming back from an 
outfaring, as he rested his weary limbs, that he 
thought over many things in his mind, and he 
was suddenly moved with the awe of God and 
his heart was filled within with ghostly love ; and 
when he awoke, he thought on the old kings that 
were of yore, who, through mindfulness of 
wretched death and the sore outgoing of a 
sinful life, forsook the world, and he saw of a 
sudden vanish away all the great wealth they 
had, and his own life hasten and hurry to an end, 
and he vowed to God that he would be his 
servant, and arising when it was day signed him- 
self with the sign of Christ's rood." 

In such wise Guthlac became the founder of 
Crowland Abbey. At first he sought refuge in 
the monastery at Pepton, but, resolving to be- 
come an anchorite, it was not long ere he made 
enquiry as to some remote, desolate spot to 
which he could retire. At this juncture he met 
a Fenman named Tatwine, who painted an 
appalling picture of a secret island known to 
himself. Many had attempted to inhabit it, 
so Tatwine declared, " but could not for the 
strange and uncouth monsters and several 

239 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

terrors with which they were affrighted." Ap- 
parently Guthlac's interest in the place increased 
in proportion as Tatwine depicted its gruesome 
qualities, and the graphic describer was at 
length prevailed upon to convey the royal youth 
thither. It proved to be a small island in the 
heart of the Fens, and here Guthlac built him- 
self a house and chapel, close to the site of the 
present half -ruined i\.bbey. 

Guthlac took up his abode at Crowland in 
697, and seventeen years later he died. If his 
biographer is to be believed, the " strange and 
uncouth monsters " resented his intrusion. 
Hardly had he built his rude hut than, " being 
awoke in the night time, betwixt his hours of 
prayer, as he was accustomed, of a sudden he 
discerned his cell to be full of black troops of 
unclean spirits, which crept in under the door, 
as also at chinks and holes, and coming in, both 
out of the sky and from the earth, filled the 
air as it were with dark clouds." Lest the 
sceptical should dismiss these unclean spirits 
as mere figments of the imagination, the biog- 
rapher gravely records that they " first bound 
the holy man; and drew him out of his cell, 
and cast him over head and ears into the dirty 
fen; and having so done, carried him through 

240 



IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

the most rough and troublesome parts thereof, 
drawing him amongst brambles and briers for 
the tearing of his limbs." 

But, happily, there is a brighter side to Guth- 
lac's life at Crowland. If he had bad dreams, 
which were probably distorted recollections of 
the cruelties he and his band had inflicted in their 
lawless raids, he did not lack compensation. 
The ravens of the Fens were at his command, 
and the fishes and the wild beasts. When talk- 
ing one day with his friend Wilfrith, two swal- 
lows suddenly flew into the room, and perching 
now on the shoulders and anon on the breast 
and arms and knees of Guthlac, filled the place 
with melody. To the surprised enquiry of his 
visitor Guthlac answered, '* Hast thou never 
learnt, brother Wilfrith, in holy writ, that the 
wild deer and the wild birds were nearer to him 
who hath led his life after the will of God ? " 

Nor was that all. In the less objective realm 
of spirit land the unclean monsters were met 
for Guthlac by radiant opponents. Especially 
was this so when he came to die. Though the 
" whirring arrow-storm " of death smote hard 
on the anchorite's spirit, a visitant of light 
enabled him to withstand the shock and fortified 
him for victory. Even his breath in that hour 

241 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

of trial was " as the blowing herbs in summer 
time, which — each in its own stead — winsome 
o'er the meadows, dropping honey, sweetly 
smell." 

Two years after Guthlac passed away Ethel- 
bald, King of Mercia, built a monastery to his 
memory, endowing it with the island of Crow- 
land and the adjacent Fenland. Several cen- 
turies later, however, that building was destroyed 
by fire, thus making way for the present more 
enduring structure, the foundations of which 
were laid in the early days of the twelfth century. 
How greatly in the meantime the fame of 
Guthlac and Crowland had increased is evident 
from the fact that two abbots, two earls, one 
hundred knights and more than five thousand 
people gathered for the laying of the first stone 
of the new abbey. 

Seven centuries have dimmed the architectural 
glory of Crowland Abbey. Although Crom- 
well was here in the early days of the Civil War, 
his presence being necessary to raise the siege 
of the place, for a rare exception he is not 
saddled with responsibility for the decaying con- 
dition of the building. That is probably ac- 
counted for by the flowing of the tide of life 
elsewhere. One section of the building is still 

242 



IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

in use as the parish church, but the glorious nave 
is a thing of the past, only the gaunt framework 
of its massive walls surviving to convey some 
suggestion of its spacious proportions. Time, 
too, has wrought havoc with the west front of 
the building, the tracery of one window having 




THE TRIANGULAR BRIDGE, CROWLAND 



wholly disappeared and many of the surviving 
niches been denuded of their figures. Not- 
withstanding these irreparable losses, sufficient 
of this historic building remains to feed the 
imagination and enable it to reconstruct un- 
forgettable pit^tures of a memorable past. 

Besides, Crowland does not depend alone 
upon its Abbey for its power to project the 

243 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

visitor back into the vanished world of the old 
English. Within a stone's throw of the ancient 
minster, stranded high and dry in the main 
street of this remote little town, is a relic of the 
past the like of which can be seen nowhere 
else in the world. This is the celebrated tri- 
angular bridge, perhaps the most interesting 
curiosity in the annals of architecture. Some 
amusing and ingenious theories have been 
advanced to account for the erection of such a 
singular structure as a bridge with three arches 
having one centre for all. But the solution of 
the problem is simple. Long centuries ago the 
river Welland divided into two streams at this 
point, and as three roads converged here the 
old builders surmounted the difficulty by build- 
ing an arch for each stream and combining the 
three arches at what should have been the apex 
of each. This clever device is of hoary antiquity ; 
a charter of the remote year 943 makes mention 
of Crowland's '' triangular bridge ; " but the 
present successor of that novel structure was 
probably built in the fourteenth century. As 
the causeway over the bridge is only eight feet 
wide, and moreover exceedingly steep, it was 
obviously adapted for foot and horse passengers 
only. 

244 



WEST DEEPING CHURCH AND FONT. 



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IN THE LINCOLNSHIRE FENS 

Wander whither he will among the Fens of 
Lincolnshire the visitor need fear no disturbance 
of that sense of communion with the past which 
Crowland creates. Everything seems touched 
with " the golden stain of time." Even such 
a building as Gretford Hall, the mullioned 
windows of which have thrown their image into 
their watery mirror since the days of Queen 
Elizabeth, seems a modern structure in this 
land of ancient abbeys and churches and 
dwellings. No district in England can excel the 
Fenland for the beauty and age of its ecclesi- 
astical architecture. Here a village will dis- 
play a parish church of the graceful early Eng- 
lish period, there another keeps careful custody 
of a rural temple which dates back to Norman 
times. 

Nor is it greatly different with the home 
dwellings of the Fen folk. Those who builded 
for these peaceful people built for the centuries. 
Generation after generation has known no 
other home than such as greet the wayfarer 
wherever he wanders. Something, too, of the 
quiet, confident stability of this unique country- 
side is suggested by the sturdy, centuries-old 
bridges which span the frequent rivers. These 
waterways also are a reflex of the lives spent by 

245 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

their reed-f ringed banks. Under the summer 
sky, in the radiance of moon or starhght, and 
in the briefer gleam and longer gloom of winter 
days, their flowing to the sea is ever " without 
haste, without rest." 



246 



XV 

WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 



WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

ALTHOUGH, as the crow flies, but ten 
miles distant from Oxford — that city 
which, " steeped in sentiment as she 
lies, spreading her gardens to the moonHght, 
and whispering from her towers the last enchant- 
ments of the Middle Age," attracts unnumbered 
thousands within her gates every year — few 
indeed are the visitors from the outside world 
who disturb the repose of Witney. Yet for his- 
toric interest and placid pastoral scenery few 
districts in the county can hope to compete 
with this little town and its surroundings. 

Excitement must not be sought here, nor any 
" sights " save such as yield their spell only to 
the reflective eye. Over church, and market- 
place, and the ancient houses which line the 
spacious main street of the town, seems to brood 
the peace of a far-off age. Life is not altogether 
idle here, for human hands are yet active 
plying an industry of remote antiquity; but 
that pursuit of the practical is powerless to 

249 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

disturb the all-pervading calm. Man and 
nature seem attuned to the solemnity of the 
silent church spire uplifted to the unresponsive 
heavens, or to the murmurless flowing of the 
river Windrush as it wends its noiseless way 
to the Isis and the sea. Here, 

" but careless Quiet lies 
Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemies.'* 

For untold centuries life has changed but 
little at Witney. " Could we for a moment 
raise the veil," writes a careful county historian, 
" we should probably find that the county life 
of 400 A. D. in Oxfordshire was not very dis- 
similar to that of to-day." The advent of the 
power of Rome and its departure, the raids of 
Jutes and Engles and Saxons, and even the 
coming of the Normans had only peaceful 
issues in this retired neighbourhood. Had 
Witney been a considerable city there would 
have been another story to tell ; for the Saxons, 
hating city life and all that belonged to it, had 
then wrecked their vengeance on the place. 
But its rural peace could not fail to recommend 
the little settlement to those lovers of village 
life. That it found favour in their eyes seems 
proved by the Saxon name of the town, which 

250 




MINSTEK LOVEL FROM THE MEADOWS. 



WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

enshrines as in a fossil the record that this was 
Witan-eye, or the " Parliament Isle." 

An old proverb declares that Witney is 
famous for the four B's — Beauty, Bread, Beer 
and Blankets. Perhaps that accounts for its 
self-contained history. The community which 
possesses a liberal supply of those commodities 
can afford to be independent of the outside 
world. 

To affirm that to-day the town maintains its 
supremacy in all the four B's might be a hazard- 
ous undertaking, but there can be no danger 
in declaring that so far as blankets are con- 
cerned its proud position is unassailed. Not- 
withstanding the competition of modern times, 
and the notable improvements which have been 
made in manufacturing processes, Witney blan- 
kets are still famous throughout the world as 
the finest of their kind. Nor is that a sur- 
prising fact. Considering that the natives 
of this town have been engaged in the occupa- 
tion for unnumbered centuries, that generation 
has handed down to generation ever ripening 
experience, it would have been strange indeed 
if the craft had not here attained its greatest 
perfection. 

Two explanations are offered for the location 

251 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

of the blanket-weaving industry at Witney. 
One of these has to be placed to the credit of the 
river Windrush, which flows so peacefully 
through the town. According to an ancient 
authority, the superiority of Witney blankets 
is due to the waters of the river being rich in 
nitrous, " peculiar abstersive qualities." WTiether 
chemical analysis confirms that theory is not 
on record. In fact a curious enquirer asserts 
that if " you ask any of the Witney manufac- 
turers if this be really the reason the manufac- 
ture has remained there so long, you will not 
be successful in getting a straightforward an- 
sw^er to a straightforward question — merely 
an amused look, with which you will have to 
be content." But why destroy all our pleasant 
illusions ? If it could be proved that the Wind- 
rush is not responsible for Witney blankets 
doubts would begin to arise whether the Trent 
is really responsible for the virtues of Burton ale. 
Even, however, though the Windrush be 
robbed of its glory, there is another stubborn 
fact to be met. Without doubt Witney is situ- 
ated in the heart of a great wool-growing dis- 
trict. It stands in close contact with the Cotswold 
country, which has always been famous for its 
luscious pasturage and its rare breed of sheep. 

252 



WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

Whatever the original cause, the natives of 
Witney have been blanket-weavers for untold 
generations. The exact date of the founding 




WITNEY BLANKET HALL 

of the industry has been lost beyond recovery, 
but there are countless proofs that by the 
middle of the seventeenth century it was in a 
flourishing condition. William J. Monk, in his 

253 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

contribution to the " Memorials of Old Oxford- 
shire," writes : " Henry III, when a boy staying 
at Witney Palace with Peter de Roches, had 
some of his wardrobe replenished here, as an 
entry in the Close Rolls shows, and it would 
be easy to prove that other sovereigns visited 
it upon many occasions, and it may be for the 
same purpose. Here came James II in the 
midst of his troubles, and perhaps the inhab- 
itants endeavoured to solace him in his woes; 
at any rate, they do not appear to have been 
unmindful of the respect which was due to 
him as the sovereign of these realms, since they 
presented him with ' a pair of blankets with 
golden fringe.' In later days came George III 
with his little German spouse, and they, too, 
were given a pair of specially made blankets." 
But, though prosperous, the blanket-weavers 
of Witney were not without their troubles. 
During the reign of Charles I some court 
favourite appears to have obtained a Patent, 
otherwise a tax, on the Witney blankets, and 
pressed his advantage so closely as to have made 
necessary an appeal to the House of Lords for 
redress. Half a century after that extortion 
had been removed, the weavers found their 
craft endangered by interlopers and " frauds 

254 



WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

and abuses " introduced in " the deceitful 
working up of blankets." Those old weavers 
held a high opinion of their craft; it was, to 
their thinking, an " art and mystery," the 
latter word perhaps conveying their appreci- 
ation of the occult " abstersive " properties of 
the Windrush. Any way, they grew anxious to 
protect their industry, and, after the manner 
of early eighteenth century political economy, 
they arrived at the conclusion that a close 
corporation would serve their purpose best. 

Hence the appeal of the Witney weavers to 
Queen Anne for Letters Patent giving them 
the power of incorporation, an appeal which 
reached a successful conclusion in 1710. This 
adroit move had an architectural result which 
is still in evidence in the town. Needing a 
building in which to exercise their powers, the 
incorporated weavers erected the Blanket Hall, 
a structure which, though no longer devoted 
to its original use, yet bears mute testimony to 
an early experiment in protection. High up 
on the front of the building, beneath the clock, 
the arms of the company are still in evidence, 
which include three leopards' heads, each hav- 
ing a shuttle in its mouth. The motto of the 
corporation was : " Weave truth with trust," a 

255 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

sentiment which a local poet, penning an " Ode 
to Peace " in 1748, devoted to the muse in the 
following lines : 

" Industry to Temp'rance marry. 

That we may Weave Truth With Trust; 
Hence let none our fleeces carry, 
But be to their country just." 

No sooner had the weavers of Witney received 
authority from the crown than they promptly 
proceeded to use it. One of the earliest entries 
in the records of the meetings held in the Blanket 
Hall tells how a member was fined five shillings 
for giving his daughter work at one of his looms 
while at the same time refusing employment 
to a journeyman who had demanded it; and 
a year or two later another member was mulct 
in ten pounds for presuming to take a second 
apprentice into his employment. One of these 
entries would seem to suggest that the Witney 
weavers were not of a martial disposition. In 
1745, the date of the first Jacobite rising, the 
corporation was required by the government 
to supply thirty men for service against the 
rebels. A meeting was hurriedly called in the 
Blanket Hall to debate on the order, and careful 
consideration of the royal mandate revealed 

256 



WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

the fact that one guinea in " ready money " 
would be regarded as an acceptable substitute 
for each man. The Witney weavers sent thirty 
guineas ! 

Another Witney survival of the past is the 




THE BUTTER CROSS AT WITNEY 



picturesque Butter Cross, standing in the market- 
place. This structure owes its existence to 
William Blake, a native of the adjacent village 
of Coggs, who caused it to be erected in 1683. 
At that time, and for many generations, it was 
probably used as a kind of pro bono publico 
stall for the venders of butter on market-days, 
but now it seems to be the recognized loafing- 
place of the town. It seems to be more than 

257 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

likely that the Butter Cross was erected for utili- 
tarian ends on a site which had previously 
played its part in the religious life of Witney. 
Prior to the Commonwealth, most of the towns 
of England had their market-cross, consisting 
generally of a statue of the Virgin and the infant 
Christ, and it is quite feasible that Witney was 
no exception to the rule. When this was swept 
away by the austere Puritans, what was more 
likely than that its place should be occupied by a 
structure which would offer no chance to offend 
their irritable religious susceptibilities ? 

Less than three miles from Witney are two 
centres of interest which no visitor to the town 
should overlook. One of these is the derelict 
colony of Charterville, disfiguring the pleasant 
Oxfordshire landscape with another of those 
monuments to folly which socialistic experiments 
have scattered over the land. It had its origin 
in the Chartist movement of sixty years ago, 
and was one of the five estates purchased by 
Feargus O'Connor. This particular estate, 
comprising some three hundred acres, was 
split up into plots of two, three and four acres, 
on each of which a small three-roomed cottage 
was built. As soon as any subscriber to the 
general fund had paid in a total of five pounds, 

258 



WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

he was eligible to take part in the ballot, and if 
he drew a prize he entered at once on the posses- 
sion of his cottage and land. And every care 
was taken to give him a fair start on his rural 
career. The land was ploughed ready for 
sowing, and a sum varying from twenty to thirty 
pounds placed in the hands of each settler. 
But the scheme was a dismal failure. At Char- 
terville the dumpy little cottages, set down just 
so in the midst of their plots, may still be seen ; 
and conspicuous among them is the large build- 
ing which was to serve as school and general 
meeting-house for the colonists. The school- 
house is a barn and tenement; the cottages 
have become the homes of agricultural labourers. 
Many of the first owners remained but a week 
or two; the charms of rural life quickly palled, 
and they returned to their towns with the balance 
of their capital plus the goodly sum realized 
for the scrip which gave them legal right to 
cottage and land. For such, no doubt, the 
scheme was not a failure, but in the mass it 
was overtaken with that fate which appears 
to be the inevitable lot of all idealistic com- 
munities. 

Only a few minutes' walk distant is a pictur- 
esque nook which quickly obliterates all memory 

259 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

of the ugliness of Charterville. At the bottom 
of a gentle valley, embowered among trees, 
set in the emerald of deep-bladed grass and 
reduplicated in the clear waters of a placid 
stream, nestle the priory farm, the church, 
and the ruined manor-house of Minster Lovel. 
Once more the peace of the ancient world asserts 
its soothing influence, and the spirit becomes 
receptive to the legends of old romance. 

Eight centuries have come and gone since 
the Lovel family reared its first roof tree in this 
enchanting dell. So long ago as 1200 a lady 
of that race, Maud by name, founded a priory 
close by, whence the hamlet became known as 
Minster Lovel. It was dissolved in 1415, and 
fifteen years later William, Lord Lovel, had built 
the stately manor-house which is now crumbling 
to decay within a stone's throw of his tomb. 

Many a noble family in England shared in 
the disaster which overtook the last of the 
Plantagenets on the field of Bosworth, con- 
spicuous among them being that Francis, Vis- 
count Lovel who was lord of this dismantled 
mansion. He, it will be remembered, figures 
among the dramatis personoB of Shakespeare's 
*' Richard III," but if he had taken no more 
prominent share in the adventures of that 

260 



WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

monarch than the dramatist credits him with his 
fate would hardly have been so tragic and 
mysterious as it proved. Shakespeare, however, 
did not know what is known to-day. Evidently 
he was unaware that Francis Lovel was the 
youthful companion of Richard, that he bore the 
civil sword of Justice at his coronation, that he 
was created Lord Chamberlain, and that he 
is inscribed on royal records as the King's 
** dearest friend." 

He was among the few loyal and devoted 
knights who galloped with Richard in his 
final and fatal desperate charge at Bosworth, and 
for two years thereafter he approved his un- 
shaken devotion by heading little bands of 
heroic insurgents against Henry VII. For 
his reward he was placed high in the list of noble 
persons attainted for their adherence to Richard, 
and that document records that he was " slain 
at Stoke." 

But was Francis Lovel slain at Stoke? It is 
the impossibility of answering that question 
which gives the ruins of Minster Lovel their 
most romantic association. That at the battle 
of Stoke, in 1487, Francis Lovel fought with as 
much valour as though Richard himself were 
present, is attested by Francis Bacon in his 

261 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

" History of King Henry VII,'* But he adds 
that eventually Lord Lovel fled, *' and swam 
over the Trent on horseback, but could not 
recover the other side, by reason of the steepness 
of the bank, and so was drowned in the river." 

Yet legend, and more than legend, will have 
it that Francis Lovel regained his stately home 
by the side of the Windrush. Bacon himself 
knew of another report, which left him not 
drowned in the waters of the Trent, " but that 
he lived long after in a cave or vault." The 
fuller story tells that when he reached Minster 
Lovel once more he shut himself up in a vaulted 
chamber, confided his secret to but one faithful 
servant, to whom he entrusted the key of his 
hiding-place and the duty of bringing him food 
from time to time. Well was the secret kept, 
and faithfully the duty discharged, till there 
came a day when death suddenly overtook the 
devoted retainer. And day followed day, and 
night succeeded night, and no food any more 
reached the lord of Minster Lovel. 

Generations later, in 1708, the Duke of Rut- 
land was at Minster Lovel when some structural 
alterations were being made in the manor house. 
In the course of their excavations, the workmen 
laid bare a large underground vault, in which 

262 



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MINSTER I,OVEL. 




LORD LOVKL's Tomr. 



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WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 

they found the skeleton of a man, reclining 
as though seated at a table, with book, paper, 
and pens before him. 

With such a memory freshly renewed, the 
visitor can hardly fail to enter the nearby 
church in heightened mood. And in that 
peaceful little building, an exquisite example 
of the Perpendicular style of architecture, he 
will find a tomb of unusual beauty. This is 
not the resting-place, as is sometimes stated, 
of Francis Lovel, but of his ancestor, William, 
Lord Lovel. There is no inscription on the 
monument and the hand of time has so effaced 
the coats of arms that their heraldic secrets are 
as hidden as the fate of Francis Lovel ; but for 
delicate workmanship, and for rich suggestion 
of the age of chivalry this alabaster memorial 
is a priceless survival. Far distant, and voice- 
less here, are the clamours of the modern world ; 
with his sword for ever at rest, and hands folded 
in eternal supplication, this knightly figure 
shall know no reawakening to those intrigues 
of the court and those conflicts of battle which 
have left their shadows on the tottering walls 
of Minster Lovel. 



263 



XVI 
THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 



THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 

THAN the three men who once spoke their 
message from these three pulpits it would 
be difficult to name a trio having so little 
in common. John Cotton was not farther re- 
moved from Thomas Arnold than he, in turn, 
was from Henry Edward Manning. Yet each 
of the three was included under the elastic 
designation of a minister of the Church of 
England. 

Than these three pulpits, too, it would be im- 
possible to cite an equal number so typical of 
the history of the church to which they belong. 
As surely as the rostrum of John Cotton is 
representative of Puritanism, and that of Thomas 
Arnold eloquent of a liberal theology, so is the 
pulpit of Henry Edward Manning reminiscent 
of the high-church half-way-house to Rome. If 
the ecclesiastical historian should ever require 
visible symbols of the three main streams of 
opinion in the Church of England, and, sub- 
sequently, in the religious life of America, he 

267 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

could not wish for more felicitous or appropriate 
illustrations than these three pulpits. 

Both chronologically and from the standpoint 




JOHN COTTON S PULPIT 



of most constant use, the pulpit of John Cotton 
has undoubted claims to priority. As the 
picture will show, it is still so fresh in ap- 
pearance that it is difficult to credit nearly three 

268 



THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 

centuries have passed away since it was placed 
in the position it still occupies in the parish 
church of Old Boston. This is not the pulpit 
from which John Cotton delivered his earliest 
sermons to the Boston people. His election 
as vicar took place in 1612, and for eight years 
he continued to use an old rostrum of which all 
traces have been lost. In 1620, however, he 
was provided with this new platform, which, in 
its hexagonal shape and general scheme of 
decoration, is a fine example of Jacobean work. 
Some of the carving is of an earlier date, belong- 
ing, as it does, to the time of Queen Elizabeth. 
The dark oak is skilfully relieved with decora- 
tions in gold, and it will be noticed that the panels 
are entirely innocent of those symbolical letters 
or designs so frequently seen on modern pulpits. 
The treads of the staircase appear to be modern, 
but otherwise the rostrum is unchanged from 
that far-off generation when, for some thirteen 
years, it was constantly occupied by the person 
of John Cotton. 

Few pulpits, in that or any other age, can have 
had such hard wear as this. The modern custom 
which leaves the pulpit unoccupied and silent 
for a hundred and sixty-five hours in each week 
would have been repugnant to the nature of the 

269 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

unwearied John Cotton. In the nature of things, 
he was found in his rostrum twice every Sunday, 
his appearances on those occasions not being 
limited to the stinted hour-and-a-half of modern 
times, but extending over five soHd hours. In 
addition to those two lengthy services on Sunday, 
he regularly preached four times in each week, 
and also indulged in *' occasional " services at 
which he would consume six hours in prayer 
and exhortation ! A note-taker who was present 
at one of these protracted services observed that 
'* there were as many sleepers as wakers, scarce 
any man but sometimes forced to wink or nod.'* 
Verily, the Puritan divines were aptly named 
" painful preachers," and it may not be unreason- 
able to charge to their account something of that 
** length of face and general atrabilious look " 
which Lowell detected in the portraits of men 
of their times. 

Notwithstanding the prominent part he played 
in the early life of New England, it may be 
questioned whether the pulpit of John Cotton 
possesses a tithe of the human interest which 
still attaches to the simple rostrum of Thomas 
Arnold. Partly, no doubt, this may be due to 
the fact that John Cotton failed to find such 
a sympathetic biographer as fell to the lot of 

270 



THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 

Thomas Arnold ; but a more potent cause may- 
be found in the reflection that while Cotton's 
theology is of the dead past that of Arnold is 
not far removed from the living faith of the 
present. 

What an immense debt the world owes to the 
Rugby of Thomas Arnold has not been, and 
perhaps cannot be, fully tabulated. It may 
be possible to appraise to some extent the 
measure of his influence acting through the 
life-work of such men as Arthur Stanley, Thomas 
Hughes, Arthur Clough, and his own illustrious 
son, Matthew Arnold; but the hundreds of 
scholars who, without achieving fame, carried 
the elevating influence of their great school- 
master into diverse walks of life represent an 
indebtedness of which history can at the best 
take only imperfect account. 

By the unanimous testimony of his pupils, it 
was from the pulpit of the school chapel at 
Rugby that Arnold exercised most potently both 
his genius as a scholar and his exalted character 
as a Christian teacher. Before his day, the 
head-masters of public schools in England had 
not made a practice of preaching regularly to 
their scholars; it was only on special occasions 
that the boys had a discourse addressed to them ; 

271 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

but Arnold's habit of delivering a sermon every 
Sunday afternoon is now universally followed. 
As with other innovations at Rugby, he felt his 
way slowly. At first, he limited his addresses 
to about five minutes; but during the last 
fourteen years of his life his exhortations took the 
form of a set sermon of some twenty minutes' 
duration, and the discourses so delivered are 
still regarded as the best models of that type of 
preaching. 

No boy left Rugby without retaining an in- 
delible memory of the Sunday services in the 
school chapel. One pupil, who preserved 
throughout his life a living recollection of 
Arnold the preacher, has recorded that to the 
lads who heard him the impression of the man 
counted for far more than his words. " He 
was not the preacher or the clergyman who had 
left behind him all his usual thoughts and occu- 
pations as soon as he had ascended the pulpit. 
He was still the scholar, the historian, and 
theologian, basing all that he said, not indeed 
ostensibly, but consciously, and often visibly, 
on the deepest principles of the past and present. 
He was still the instructor and the schoolmaster, 
only teaching and educating with increased 
solemnity and energy. He was still the simple- 

272 



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mc/^C'^C'^i>^o^t^C'^C'^i^c^O'^i>^c>^c>^c^t^i>SiO'^C'^o^i>S'o-^t>S''&''^'&m 



THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 

hearted and earnest man, labouring to win others 
to share in his own personal feelings of disgust 
at sin, and love of goodness, and to trust to the 
same faith, in which he hoped to live and die 
himself." The same witness tells how the lapse 
of years failed to dim the picture of that band 
of eager youths who, Sunday after Sunday, *' sat 
beneath that pulpit, with their eyes fixed on him, 
and their attention strained to the uttermost to 
catch every word he uttered ; " and another 
records concerning Arnold's sermons how he 
used to '* listen to them from first to last with 
a kind of awe," and was often so impressed that 
on coming out of the chapel he would avoid his 
friends in order that he might slink home to be 
alone with his thoughts. 

A brief extract from one of those memorable 
sermons — the last Arnold gave — will, even 
though robbed of the preacher's living accents, 
reveal something of the lofty spirit of the speaker. 
It was on an early Sunday afternoon in June 
that he took his place in his pulpit for the last 
time. The school was on the eve of vacation, 
and he who had been for so many notable years 
its fearless guide and head was moved to utter 
these farewell words : ** The real point which 
concerns us all, is not whether our sin be of one 

273 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

kind or of another, more or less venial, or more 
or less mischievous in man's judgment, and to 
our worldly interests; but whether we struggle 
against all sin because it is sin ; whether we have 
or have not placed ourselves consciously under 
the banner of our Lord Jesus Christ, trusting 
in Him, cleaving to Him, feeding on Him by 
faith daily, and so resolved, and continually 
renewing our resolution, to be His faithful sol- 
diers and servants to our lives' end. To this I 
would call you all, so long as I am permitted 
to speak to you — to this I do call you all, and 
especially all who are likely to meet here again 
after a short interval, that you may return 
Christ's servants with a believing and loving 
heart ; and, if this be so, I care little as to what 
particular form temptations from without may 
take ; there will be a security within — a security 
not of man, but of God." 

Within the walls which so often echoed to his 
earnest voice, and under the shadow of that 
pulpit from whence he impressed his noble 
character on so many youthful spirits, the body 
of Thomas Arnold was laid to its rest. And 
now, for the sake of that rare spirit, and because 
of the exalted elegy to his memory penned by 
his own son, Rugby Chapel possesses associations 

274 



THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 

such as few sacred buildings can claim. Surely 
none who muse within its silent walls can miss 
the lesson of the poet-son of the great school- 
master : 

O strong soul, by what shore 
Tarriest thou now ? For that force, 
Surely, has not been left vain ! 
Somewhere, surely, afar, 
In the sounding labour-house vast 
Of being, is practised that strength, 
Zealous, beneficent, firm.' 

Yes, in some far-shining sphere. 

Conscious or not of the past. 

Still thou performest the word 

Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live. 

Prompt, unwearied, as here. 

Still thou upraisest with zeal 

The humble good from the ground, 

Sternly repressest the bad; 

Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse 

Those who with half-open eyes 

Tread the border-land dim 

'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, 

Succorest. This was thy work, 

This was thy life upon earth. 



And through thee I believe 

In the noble and great who are gone; 

Pure souls honoured and blest 

By former ages, who else — • 

Such, so soulless, so poor 

275 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Is the race of men whom I see — 
Seemed but a dream of the heart, 
Seemed but a cry of desire. 

WTiolly different is the interest attaching to the 
pulpit from which Henry Edward Manning 
exercised his ministry before he went over to 
the Church of Rome. It is to be found in the 
picturesque little church of Lavington, in the 
English county of Sussex, beneath the shadow 
of which Richard Cobden is buried. When 
Manning was appointed to this rural living, 
the church was in a neglected condition, and 
the present structure, as well as the pews, 
furniture and pulpit, were designed and erected 
under his supervision. 

Two critical phases in the career of the future 
cardinal are associated with Lavington Church. 
Under its roof he went through a ceremony 
which, if it had been lasting in its results, would 
have effectually prevented him from having 
been even a humble priest in the Roman Church. 
In the closing decade of his life, when he had 
nursed for many years his unaccountable hos- 
tility to Newman, one of Manning's supporters 
had declared, " Newman's conversion is the 
greatest calamity which has befallen the Catholic 
Church in our day." To this aspersion a friend 

276 



THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 

of Newman retorted, " No, the greatest calamity 
to the Church in our day was the death of a 
woman." Of course this rejoinder was aimed 
at Manning, who, in his early manhood, had 
taken a wife to himself at the altar beside his 
pulpit in Lavington Church. That Manning 
resented the remark may be inferred from the 
fact that when he charged its supposed author 
with the utterance, he only replied, *' I pity 
the man who repeated it to your Grace." 

Less than four years after the marriage. Man- 
ning's wife died, and thenceforward, but espe- 
cially after he became a Catholic, he carefully 
obliterated all traces of that episode from his 
life. References in his diary were all expunged ; 
letters belonging to that period were wholly 
destroyed; an unfinished portrait for which 
Mrs. Manning had given but one sitting mysteri- 
ously disappeared ; and when, after he became 
a cardinal, the churchwardens of Lavington 
wrote to inform him that his wife's grave was 
falling into decay, his reply was : *' It is best so ; 
let it be. Time effaces all things." Manning 
never alluded to his wife after he went over to 
Rome. His candid biographer thinks the reason 
may have been that he was afraid the knowledge 
that he had once been married might have 

277 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

lessened the respect of his Catholic flock; but, 
whatever the cause, the fact was so thoroughly 
obliterated that when he died few Catholics 
or members of the general piiblic knew that the 
cardinal had once been a husband. 

Apart from this episode, however, the chief 
interest in the pulpit of Lavington Church con- 
sists in the fact that it was from its vantage 
ground Manning preached his last sermon as a 
minister of the Church of England. During 
the last two or three of the seventeen years he 
ministered here his mind was greatly perplexed 
as to what path he ought to follow. At last, as 
the year 1850 waned to its close, he felt that he 
could not any longer retain his position in the 
English church. " I feel," he wrote, " that my 
foot is in the river. It is cold, and my heart is 
sad." A little later he told the same friend that 
he was " suffering deeply," adding, " I have not 
much to say about our dear home and flock. 
They are very sorry, and speak very kindly. 
What tender affections, and visions of beauty 
and of peace move to and fro under that hillside 
where I see it rise in memory. Nothing in all 
this life, except the Altar, can ever again be to 
me as Lavington." Perhaps, even after he be- 
came the famous cardinal, and moved at his 

278 



THREE MEMORABLE PULPITS 

ease among the great men who controlled the 
public affairs of his time. Maiming, in his inner- 
most heart, often thought of that humble pulpit 
in Lavington Church, and wished that the 
crumbling grave in that village God's-acre had 
not so untimely claimed its beautiful victim. 



279 



XVII 
FIVE FAMOUS SCHOOLS 



FIVE FAMOUS SCHOOLS 

SECOND in interest only to the houses in 
which they were born into life, are the 
buildings in which men of genius were born 
into the realm of knowledge. It is true these 
intellectual birthplaces prompt a reflection not 
wholly pleasing to those who have the cause of 
education at heart; for they suggest the thought 
that while the average boy reaps undoubted 
benefit from a thorough course of instruction, 
the boy of genius is by no means equally indebted 
to his formal tuition in school. 

Here and there a schoolmaster to whom 
fortune has committed the early education of a 
famous man has been known to hint that his 
pupil's greatness was not unconnected with his 
teacher's surpassing ability ; 

" The pedagogue, with self-complacent air. 
Claims more than half the praise as his due share;" 

and there are schools which sun themselves 
over-consciously in the reflected glory of those 

283 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

who were once numbered among their scholars. 
But really, when genius is in question, school or 
master counts for little. How preposterous it 
would have been had Shakespeare's achieve- 
ments been placed to the special credit of the 
grammar-school of Stratford-on-Avon ! The un- 
due praise of any specific educational establish- 
ment inevitably recalls Lamb's witticism at the 
expense of the gentleman who thought all men 
of genius were manufactured at Harrow school. 
There was so-and-so, he said, and so-and-so, and 
thus on through a long string of names, follow- 
ing up each with the remark, *' and he was a 
Harrow boy." *' Yes," stuttered Lamb, "Ye-es; 
and there's Burns, he was a plough boy." 

Still, even the boy of genius must learn to use 
his tools. *' You come here not to read," Arnold 
used to say to his Rugby boys, *' but to learn how 
to read." And then there is that saying of Goethe : 
" Even the greatest genius would not go far if 
he tried to owe everything to his own internal 
self." So that, even although school does not 
count for so much with the boy of genius as 
with his comrade of ordinary talent, it counts 
for enough to impart considerable interest to the 
building in which his feet were set upon the 
highway of knowledge. 

284 



FIVE FAMOUS SCHOOLS 

Though time has wrought sad havoc with the 
schools of many famous meu, levelling some 
to the ground and so changing others as to leave 
them unrecognizable, it yet has spared a few 
of those the world would be most reluctant to 
lose. Chief among such buildings is the pictur- 
esque structure where the boy William Shake- 
speare was once a scholar. Among the various 
edifices in Stratford-on-Avon associated with 
his immortal memory there is not one which 
has undergone so little change as the Edward 
the Sixth Grammar-School. Indeed, this is 
the one building upon which we may gaze with 
certain knowledge that the impression it makes 
on a modern retina differs but slightly from the 
image which the boy Shakespeare knew. The 
house shown as his birthplace is undoubtedly 
a fraud ; the house he built for himself has long 
ago wholly disappeared ; but this school building 
is an authentic relic of the bard's early days. 

In this quaint, half-timbered structure, then, 
somewhere about the year 1571, William Shake- 
speare, then a lad of seven, began the only 
academical training he was ever to receive. No 
anecdotes have survived from his school-days; 
and all that can be aflSrmed about the education 
he was given here is that it included instruction 

285 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

in the language and literature of ancient Rome. 
In some grammar-schools of the period the 
elements of Greek were also taught, and if that 
rule prevailed at Stratford we need look no 
further for that " less Greek " which Jonson 
placed to Shakespeare's credit. Whether the 
future dramatist was an industrious scholar, 
or whether he himself was the 

" whining school-boy, with his satchel 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school," 

must be left an open question. But no one can 
gaze on these walls, so reminiscent of his child- 
hood, without recalling Longfellow's poetic pic- 
ture of the world's most famous school-boy 

" I see him now 
A boy with sunshine on his brow, 
And hear in Stratford's quiet street 
The patter of his little feet." 

Brain for brain, would there have been much 
difference between the cerebrum of Shakespeare 
and that of Isaac Newton ? The whole universe 
is Newton's monument, said one eulogist; the 
sun of Newton has absorbed the radiance of all 
other luminaries, declared a second ; and Emer- 
son offers the greatest tribute of all in his preg- 

286 



FIVE FAMOUS SCHOOLS 

nant sentence : " One may say that a gravitating 
solar system is already prophesied in the nature 
of Newton's mind." 

Happily, while it is not known with certainty 
which were the rooms he occupied at Cambridge 
University, no doubt exists as to the building 
in which the boy Newton received his earliest 
training. Six miles from the ancient Lincolnshire 
manor house in which the future mathematician 
was born, is the market town of Grantham, 
in the public school of which Newton became a 
pupil. Two and a half centuries have passed 
away since then, but the school-house remains 
unaltered. On the opposite side of the road 
runs the wall of Grantham churchyard, the 
identical wall against which the young philoso- 
pher completed his fisticuff triumph over a 
more robust fellow scholar. The quarrel began 
when the two boys were on their way to school 
one morning, Newton's companion opening 
hostilities by kicking him in the stomach. 
When lessons were over, the kicker found him- 
self challenged to a fight in the adjoining church- 
yard, and so skilfully did his opponent handle 
his fists that it was not long ere he owned him- 
self beaten. The only witness of the combat 
was the schoolmaster's son, who assured Newton 

287 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

that his victory would not be complete until he 
rubbed his opponent's nose against the wall. 
Thereupon, thorough in all he undertook, even 
as a boy, Newton seized his assailant by the 
ears and duly ground his face against the wall. 

But Newton was not satisfied with that victory. 
His vanquished foe stood above him in the school, 
and it now dawned upon him that it would be 
more to his credit to strive after mental suprem- 
acy. Previously he had been an idle scholar, 
more absorbed in working out countless mechan- 
ical inventions than in his books ; but from the 
day of his victorious fight he addressed himself 
to his studies with such determination that it 
was not long before he rose to the highest place 
in the academy. When the day came for him 
to bid farewell to Grantham, his master made 
him stand in the most conspicuous place in the 
school, while, with tears in his eyes, he eulogized 
his favourite pupil, and held him up to the other 
scholars as one worthy their love and emulation. 

Few men of genius have owed so little to 
schools and schoolmasters as Alexander Pope. 
So far as set instruction was concerned, his 
education was ended when he had reached 
his twelfth year. For the bulk of that knowledge 
which he used with such striking effect, he was in- 

288 



FIVE FAMOUS SCHOOLS 

debted almost entirely to his own exertions; 
" considering," he said, " how very little I had, 
when I came from school, I think I may be said 
to have taught myself Latin as well as French 
and Greek." Wordsworth has left it on record 
that his earliest days at school were supremely 
happy just because he was allowed to read what 
he liked ; and Pope derived equal pleasure 
from the fact that his freedom from the restraint 
of school gave him liberty to browse among 
books at his will, *' like a boy gathering flowers 
in the fields and woods, just as they fall in his 
way." 

Of the two buildings in which Pope received 
his earliest instruction, only one remains. It 
is situated in the Hampshire village of Twyford, 
not far from that Twyford House where Ben- 
jamin Franklin was so often the guest of his 
friend Bishop Shipley, and under the roof of 
which he wrote a considerable portion of his 
Autobiography. Pope was in his eighth year 
when he was sent to this lovely hamlet, but his 
genius was of such early growth that he had 
already translated part of Statins, and had 
made some attempts at poetry on his own ac- 
count. Hardly had he been a year at school 
when some personal traits of his master appealed 

289 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

to his satiric faculty, and he forthwith perpetu- 
ated his ideas in verse. The poem was seen by 
the master, who promptly rewarded the young 
poet with a rejoinder more tangible than words. 
Resenting bodily punishment for his child, Pope's 
father immediately removed him from the school, 
and Twyford knew him no more. 

But his year's sojourn in that beautiful village 
left its mark on his verse. Ere he entered his 
teens he had written his haunting " Ode on 
Solitude," and there can be no question that 
its pictures of the peaceful happiness of a retired 
rural life owe their existence to his Twyford 
days. His school-house here has been trans- 
formed into several tenements, but the altera- 
tions have so little affected the appearance of 
the building that it is not difficult to imagine 
what its aspect must have been when Pope 
dwelt under its roof. 

Fragmentariness seems naturally associated 
with the name of John Keats. His greatest 
poem was left unfinished ; his most exquisite 
ode is a torso ; than his, no life could be more 
truthfully symbolized by a broken pillar. In 
strange keeping with all this, is the fact that of 
his school-house nothing save a mere fragment 
survives. Even that fragment owes its pres- 

290 



FIVE FAMOUS SCHOOLS 

ervation not to its having been a portion of the 
building in which the poet was educated, but 




FACADE OF KEATS' SCHOOLHOUSE 

to the accident that it was an excellent example 
of early Georgian brick-work! The house at 
Enfield of which it formed a part was built for 
a rich West-India merchant, and when it was 

291 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

demolished to make room for a railway-station 
the facade was carefully preserved for the sake 
of its fine brick- work and rich ornaments. Hence 
its appearance in the South Kensington Museum, 
where, however, no record is made of the fact 
that the boy Keats often passed through this 
doorway in his school-days. 

During the six years he spent at this, his only 
school, the future poet gave at first no indication 
of that passion for literature by which he was 
afterwards distinguished. Books had no attrac- 
tion for him; what he lived for was fighting; 
he would fight any one at any time, morning, 
noon, or night ; "it was meat and drink to 
him." Even his brothers were not exempt 
from his pugnacious exploits ; " before we left 
school," said George Keats, " we quarrelled 
often and fought fiercely; " but if any one else 
attacked either of his brothers, John Keats 
flew to his aid. One day an usher boxed the 
ears of Tom Keats, and in an instant John 
rushed from his place in the school and faced 
the usher in a fighting attitude. Naturally, 
this reckless courage made him the favourite 
of the school, but even apart from that trait 
of his character he won the love of all his com- 
panions. 

292 



FIVE FAMOUS SCHOOLS 

Suddenly, when his terms were drawing to a 
close, Keats, like Newton, dropped the character 
of the pugilist for that of the scholar, and he 
became so absorbed in his reading that he was 
never without a book in his hand. Even at 
supper, he would prop up a portly folio between 
himself and the table, " eating his meal from 
beyond it." 

In harmony with the lowly social station of 
life into which he was born, none of these 
interesting school-houses has so humble an 
appearance as that in which Thomas Carlyle 
began his education. He was only five years 
old when he was enrolled among the pupils 
of " Tom Donaldson's " school in his native 
village of Ecclefechan, the master being, accord- 
ing to his famous scholar, " a severely-correct 
kind of man." But he qualified that opinion 
by recalling that his master was always *' merry 
and kind " to him, and only severe to the " un- 
deserving." Tom Donaldson must have been 
a capable teacher, for by the time Carlyle had 
reached his seventh year he was reported to be 
*' complete in English." 

Two other buildings were to claim some share 
in the honour of training the great writer, the 
grammar-school at Annan and Edinburgh Uni- 

293 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

versity; but as he denied receiving much good 
from either, the lowly school-house of Eccle- 
fechan may be regarded as the most important 
factor in Carlyle's education. It is not now used 
for scholastic purposes, but those pilgrims from 
America who visit that Scottish village in such 
large numbers every year look upon this modest 
building with almost as much interest as that 
other little house in which Carlyle was born. 
Behind the school-house is the simple village 
graveyard where the friend of Emerson and the 
author of '* Sartor " sleeps with his lowly kindred. 



294 



XVIII 
WATER WORSHIP IN DERBYSHIRE 



I 



WATER WORSHIP IN DERBYSHIRE 

MANY who cast their thoughts back to the 
condition of mankind when the world 
was young must often sigh for a tem- 
porary draught of the waters of Lethe. To be 
able to confront nature after the manner of 
primitive man would be an intensely interesting 
experiment; to erase from recollection the rich 
*' spoils of time ; " to have a mind blank of all 
the multifarious knowledge industriously com- 
piled through the long ages of civilization. 

What would be the result of such an ex- 
perience ? Perhaps here and there among the 
readers of these lines there may be an occasional 
one able to frame a half -answer to the question : 
one who, early in life, when the brain was not 
so fully stored as in after years, has had moments 
of absolute aloneness with nature, and been 
startled with the realization of an objective 
presence which oppressed the spirit. Such an 
event happened in the mental history of Words- 
worth. As F. W. H. Myers has pointed out 

297 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH \NAYS 

in his illuminating study of that poet, there is a 
passage in the " Prelude " in which " the boy*s 
mind is represented as passing through pre- 
cisely the train of emotion which we may imagine 
to be at the root of the theology of many barbar- 
ous people. He is rowing at night alone on 
Esthwaite Lake, his eyes fixed upon a ridge 
of crags, above which nothing is visible : 

* I dipped my oars into the silent lake, 
And as I rose upon the stroke my boat 
Went heaving through the water like a swan ; — 
When, from behind that craggy steep till then 
The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge. 
As if with voluntary power instinct 
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again; 
And growing still in stature, the grim shape 
Towered up between me and the stars, and still. 
For so it seemed, with purpose of its own. 
And measured motion like a living thing, 
Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned. 
And through the silent water stole my way 
Back to the covert of the willow-tree; 
There in her mooring-place I left my bark, 
And through the meadows homeward went, in grave 
And serious mood. But after I had seen 
That spectacle, for many days, my brain 
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense 
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts 
There hung a darkness — call it solitude 
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes 
Remained, no pleasant images of trees, 

298 



WATER WORSHIP IN DERBYSHIRE 

Of sea, or sky, no colours of green fields; 
But huge and mighty forms, that do not live 
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind 
By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.' " 

Perhaps in all modern poetry there is no 
other passage quite comparable to this for the 
illustration it affords of the manner in which the 
objects of nature " can impress the mind with 
that awe which is the foundation of savage 
creeds, while yet they are not identified with any 
human intelligence." 

But, inasmuch as primitive man has not yet 
disappeared from the earth, the process can 
also be illustrated from the records of travel 
among untutored races. One observer tells us 
that on the river Niger, canoemen may often 
be seen bending over the water in converse with 
its spirit, and another states that the native boat- 
men continually bawl through trumpets to the 
river fetich, and that the echo to the call is 
interpreted as the spirit's reply. Among all 
the races who still represent the dawn in the 
history of civilization the various aspects of 
nature have their special deities. And conspicu- 
ous among these are the gods who preside over 
ocean, or river, or spring. " What ethnography 
has to teach," writes E. B. Tylor, " of that great 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

element of the religion of mankind, the wor- 
ship of well and lake, brook and river, is simply 
this — that what is poetry to us was philosophy 
to early man; that to his mind water acted 
not by laws of force, but by life and will ; that 
the water-spirits of primaeval mythology are 
as souls which cause the water's rush and rest, 
its kindness and its cruelty; that, lastly, man 
finds in the beings which, with such power, can 
work him weal and woe, deities to be feared 
and loved, to be prayed to and praised, and 
propitiated with sacrificial gifts." 

Such mingled feelings of fear and affection 
persisted in the high civilization attained by the 
Greeks and Romans. They, it will be recalled, 
always entered the bath with uncovered heads, 
and indulged universally in votive offerings by 
the side of springs and fountains. Horace 
declared it was because he was a friend to the 
springs and fountains that the Muses had pro- 
tected his life at Philippi and rescued him on 
many other occasions ; and the spirit of worship 
breaths through every line of his immortal ode 
to the fountain of Bandusia : 



" O babbling Spring, than glass more clear, 
Worthy of wreath and cup sincere, 

300 



WATER WORSHIP IN DERBYSHIRE 

To-morrow shall a kid be thine 
With swelled and sprouting brows for sign, — 
Sure sign ! — of loves and battles near. 

" Child of the race that butt and rear ! 
Not less, alas ! his life blood dear 
Must tinge thy cold wave crystalline, 
O babbling Spring ! 

" Thee Sirius knows not. Thou dost cheer 
With pleasant cool the plough-worn steer, — 
The wandering flock. This verse of mine 
Will rank thee one with founts divine; 
Men shall thy rock and tree revere, 
O babbling Spring ! " 

To the modern mind, as Mr. Tylor remarks, 
all this is poetry rather than philosophy. The 
reason is obvious. Reservoirs and water-rates 
are ruthless destroyers of sentiment. It is 
difficult to appreciate in the twentieth century 
that state of mind which created the water- 
worship of the long-ago. While the modern 
man is called upon to compound for his supply 
of water in hard cash, it is improbable that he 
will be caught again in that attitude of adora- 
tion which primitive man assumed in the 
presence of fountain or well. 

Yet the cult is not dead, even among civilized 
people. There are two or three villages in Eng- 
land where, once a year, the water-spirits are 

301 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

still honoured with something of that worship 
once so common throughout the world. This 
is specially the case at Tissington, a village 
situated in the famous Peak district of Derby- 
shire. Within the bounds of this parish, and 
at no great distance from each other, are five 




TISSINGTON VILLAGE 



distinct natural springs of water, or wells, as 
they are called; and every year, on Ascension 
Day, the entire population is earnestly absorbed 
in doing honour to those sources whence, free 
of all cost, the water-supply of the hamlet 
is derived. 

Surely no one can gaze upon the simple 
ceremonies of Weil-Dressing day at Tissington 
without realizing that custom is the most abiding 
and indestructible thing in this world of change. 
The Pyramids of Egypt are sometimes exalted 

302 



WATER WORSHIP IN DERBYSHIRE 

as among the most ancient monuments of an- 
tiquity, but the simple village folk who pay their 
devotions to the wells of Tissington every year 
represent an antiquity beside which that of the 
Pyramids is a mushroom growth. To the seeing 
eye, those well-dressers tell of an age and a faith 
dating back long prior to the dawn of history. 

For several days preceding each anniversary, 
all the villagers are absorbed in preparations 
for the event. Naturally, the first matter which 
has to be considered is that of the designs of 
the various wells, and as there are five to be 
treated every year it argues considerable re- 
sourcefulness of ideas that these designs are 
varied with each anniversary. When the scheme 
of decoration for each well has been decided 
upon, the initial step in working it out consists 
in making a wooden frame on which to build 
up the design. As, however, the materials out 
of which each design is constructed consist of 
such diverse and miscellaneous articles as moss, 
evergreen leaves, haricot beans, minute shells, 
and the delicate petals of flowers, it might puzzle 
an inexperienced well-dresser to decide how best 
to prepare the wooden frame for the reception 
of such unusual pigments. At Tissington the 
problem has been solved by preparing a mixture 

303 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

of wet clay, into which salt is kneaded for the 
purpose of keeping it moist and adhesive. When 
the wooden frame has been coated with this 
preparation to the thickness of about half an 
inch, the chosen design is slowly elaborated 
thereon with the materials noted above. As 
may be imagined, the process is a tedious one; 
and when, as at Tissington, there are five pic- 
tures to be prepared, the labour is not incon- 
siderable. 

In some cases, as will be seen by reference 
to the photographs which show the designs of 
a recent year, the motto chosen provides the 
artist with the theme for his scheme of decoration. 
Thus, the design over the Yew-Tree Well is 
in harmony with its legend of ** At thy feet ador- 
ing fall ; " while the adornment of Hand's Well 
is in perfect unison with its scriptural quotation. 
The pair of harts owe their existence to haricot 
beans, as does also the suggested mountain- 
origin of the rather formal stream which runs 
between them. The other designs include 
creditable representations of a castle and a town- 
gate. 

Sometimes the designs adopted seem somewhat 
foreign to the purpose of the well-dressers, as 
when a Chinese figure was chosen for a leading 

304 



WATER WORSHIP IN DERBYSHIRE 

topic; but in the main the designs usually have 
some distinct or symbolical meaning. 

Indeed, so far as the ceremonies of the day 
are concerned, the entire proceedings are sug- 
gestive of that wise expediency with which in the 
early days of Christianity the Church took over 
and gave a new interpretation to customs which 
were wholly pagan in their origin. At Tissing- 
ton, the well-dressing celebration begins with 
a service in the parish church, at which a suitable 
sermon is preached, and thereafter a procession 
is formed which visits each of the wells in turn. 
During a brief halt at each well, a portion of 
scripture is read, and a hymn sung to the 
accompaniment of the village band. Once these 
duties are discharged, the villagers give them- 
selves over for the rest of the day to rural sports 
and holiday pastimes. The farmers, and others 
whose means permit, keep open house through- 
out the day, and even strangers are made heartily 
welcome to the good cheer provided for this 
yearly festival. 

Two explanations have been offered to account 
for the persistence with which the villagers of 
Tissington celebrate Weil-Dressing day. One 
theory aflSrms that the custom had its origin in 
a feeling of gratitude for the special providence 

305 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

which, in a season of terrible drought, main- 
tained undiminished the water-supply of these 
five wells ; the other explanation would find a 
cause in the statement that when the Black Death 
of the fourteenth century swept over England 
and decimated whole villages, the people of 
Tissington owed their preservation to the purity 
of the water supplied by these wells. Such 
incidents may have accentuated the zeal of the 
villagers in their water-worship, but for the 
origin of that reverence we must undoubtedly 
look back to a time of which history takes no 
account. It has been shown that the worship 
of water was common to all the races of mankind 
in the earliest days of which legend gives us 
knowledge; and its unique survival in this 
Derbyshire village is an attractive illustration 
of the poetic fancy with which men looked 
upon their environment when all the world was 
young. 



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XIX 

WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 



WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

WITHIN sound of the North Sea and 
circled about by the reflecting waters 
of the river Coquet, stand the massive 
ruins of Warkworth Castle, offering to the in- 
formed imagination silent yet eloquent witness 
to many a stirring and picturesque page of Eng- 
lish history. 

Though lying but a mile or two distant from 
the east-coast steel-highway between England 
and Scotland, the tide of modern life has almost 
receded from this interesting spot. Now and 
then a tiny wave from the ocean of travel reaches 
out to these silent walls, but week in and week 
out through the procession of the seasons the 
ancient peace of Warkworth is practically un- 
broken. 

How violent are the changes the centuries 
bring ! To the Northumbrians of seven, or six, 
or five hundred years ago it would have seemed 
incredible that Warkworth should ever cease 
to be a centre of busy life. In those far-off 

309 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

days this castle was a favourite stronghold of 
the illustrious house of Percy, whose sons, in the 
age of chivalry and succeeding generations, 
held a position of proud pre-eminence among 
the powerful nobles of England. In the veins 
of the Percies there mingled the blood royal of 
France and England. An early lord of North- 
umberland traced his ancestry back in direct 
line to Charlemagne; a later scion could claim 
kinship with Henry III of England. For long 
centuries the Percies were ever foremost in the 
council-chamber or on the battle-field, approv- 
ing themselves, especially amid the clash of arms, 
born leaders of men. And the castle at Wark- 
worth naturally gathered to itself much of the 
renown achieved by the lords of Northumber- 
land. 

But the history of Warkworth Castle began 
long before it became the home of the Percies. 
Its origins, indeed, are lost in the mists of a 
far distant past. Laborious antiquaries opine 
that the moated mound on which the donjon 
stands was originally occupied by the " worth " 
or palace of the Ocgings, a line of Bernician 
princes. These learned imaginings, however, 
provide little food even for the historic imagina- 
tion. In default of actual information of earlier 

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WARKWORTH CASTLE. 



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WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

episodes it is more interesting to fasten upon the 
authenticated record of the visit of King John 
to Warkworth in February, 1213. More than 
two years had yet to elapse ere he adhibited 
his unwiUing signature to Magna Charta, but his 
presence in Northumberland had intimate re- 
lation with the struggle which culminated at 
Runnymede. It was the strong-hearted leader- 
ship of the Northern barons which made the 
winning of the Great Charter possible, and John's 
presence at Warkworth was due to the sudden 
expedition he made for the purpose of crushing 
those fearless champions of liberty. Devasta- 
tion and disorder marked the path in North- 
umberland of that king on whom the terrible 
verdict was passed, " Foul as it is, hell itself is 
defiled by the fouler presence of John." The 
perfidious monarch paid marked attention to the 
estates of the Percy of that time, as though 
foreseeing that his name would take a foremost 
place on the list of those barons who were to 
compel his acceptance of Magna Charta. 

Not yet, however, were the Percies lords of 
Warkworth Castle. But they had a stronghold 
near by, at Alnwick, against which, in the late 
years of the thirteenth and the early years of 
the fourteenth centuries, the tide of Scottish 

311 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

invasion frequently broke in wild force. Those 
were the stirring generations of border warfare. 
Bannockburn did not end the feud between the 
northern and southern kingdoms. Again and 
again Robert Bruce invaded Northumberland. 
Several desperate attempts belong to the year 
1327, culminating in the investment of Alnwick 
and Warkworth Castles by a considerable army 
under the personal leadership of the redoubtable 
Scottish king. But they all failed. And that 
result was largely due to the Percy who was so 
soon to number Warkworth among his personal 
possessions. 

It happened thus. Grateful for the services 
he had rendered in hurling back the Scots, but 
more appreciative still of the part he played in 
securing the conviction and death of the schem- 
ing Mortimer, Edward III marked his favour 
to Percy by a grant of the castle and lordship 
of Warkworth in 1330. From that time to the 
present, with brief intermissions of forfeiture, 
it has remained among the possessions of the 
famous Northumberland house. 

Nearly half a century later the head of the 
Percy family was created Earl of Northumber- 
land by Richard II. That monarch could have 
had little premonition of the part the new earl 

3U 



WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

was to play in the rebellion which, twenty-two 
years later, was to end in his deposition. Why 
the earl took part in that movement is involved 
in obscurity, but there is no gainsaying the fact, 
nor that he played a conspicuous role in placing 
Henry Bolinbroke on the throne of England as 
Henr}^ IV. 

Four years later the Percies and Warkworth 
Castle figured prominently in English history. 
The loyalty of the earl to the new king was 
shortlived. Through family relationships they 
became implicated in the conspiracy for the 
dethronement of Henry IV, a conspiracy which 
was discussed and consummated within the walls 
of Warkworth. This is the theme Shakespeare 
seized upon for the first part of his *' Henry IV," 
the leading characters of that drama including, 
it will be remembered, not only the Earl of 
Northumberland, but his still more famous son, 
the Percy Hotspur of ballad and history. 

" A son who is the theme of honour's tongue ; 
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant; 
Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride." 

Even a king might have hesitated to take 
arms against such a sire and such a son. The 
earl and Hotspur were no novices in the arts of 

313 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

war; the one was growing grey in the service 
of arms, the other had been bred to sword and 
spear and dauntless leadership from his tenderest 
years. And when the Percies took a venture in 
hand they bent to its accomplishment every 
gift of an adroit and high-spirited race. Wark- 
worth Castle, as has been said, was the centre 
of this momentous conspiracy, and so skilfully 
and speciously was it planned that in a brief 
time Hotspur had letters in his possession com- 
mitting nearly all the nobles of England to the 
support of his enterprise. At length the hour 
arrived for action, but ere riding off at the head 
of eight score horsemen, Hotspur placed the 
incriminating letters in the custody of his squire, 
who, in turn, hid them in some corner of Wark- 
worth Castle. 

Hotspur's enterprise against Henry IV cannot 
be followed here. It was the last of his desperate 
ventures. Many nobles flocked to his standard 
at Chester, and his father was to follow soon 
with such support as he had remained behind 
to gather in Northumberland. But the king, 
moving swiftly and with consummate general- 
ship, threw his forces between Hotspur and his 
father, and by the battle of Shrewsbury freed 
himself from the danger which threatened his 

314 



WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

throne. Hotspur himself fell on that stoutly- 
contested field : 

" fare thee well, great heart ! 
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk ! 
When that this body did contain a spirit, 
A kingdom for it was too small a bound; 
But now two paces of the vilest earth 
Is room enough : this earth that bears thee dead 
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman." 

News of the disaster and the death of his heroic 
son reached the Earl of Northumberland on his 
march. It was useless to proceed further, and 
so he retreated to his own country. At New- 
castle he found closed gates and cold hearts, 
resolving him to seek refuge in his own castle at 
Warkworth. Here he received a summons to 
the presence of the king, a summons he could 
not afford to disobey. After a year or so of 
hollow truce, the earl, on being called to attend 
the council, excused himself on the score of 
age and infirmity. Those pleas w^ere but the 
cloak for new insurrection, and when the king 
realized that fact he gathered an army of over 
thirty thousand men and marched swiftly to the 
north. The earl fled, but Warkworth barred 
the royal host for a time. Even to-day its stout 
walls look as though they might have made 

315 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

formidable resistance to a fifteenth century 
army, but the king had equipped his force with 
" every conceivable engine of war, from the 
old-fashioned stone-casting catapults to the newly 
invented guns, one of the latter being so large 
that, it was believed, no wall could withstand 
the missiles it hurled." That appears to have 
been the opinion of the defenders of Warkworth. 
Perhaps they smiled confidently when they 
saw the royal cannons placed in position, but 
by the time seven rounds had been discharged 
such havoc had been wrought that the captain 
surrendered at discretion. The next day Henry 
IV was comfortably lodged within its walls 
penning a letter to the Privy Council in London 
announcing his success. 

Royalty did not altogether desert Warkworth 
when the king returned to London. From this 
date, 1405, to about 1414, the noble castle on 
the Coquet was the headquarters of John of 
Lancaster, the third son of Henry IV. Although 
but a lad of sixteen, he had bestowed upon him 
the forfeited estates of the Earl of Northumber- 
land, and he was further weighted with the oner- 
ous duties of the warden of the East March. 
In the latter capacity the youthful John was 
held responsible for the defences of the English 

316 



WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

Border, no enviable post in view of the lust for 
ravage which possessed the lowland Scots ot 
these days. Moreover, the task was rendered 
all the more irksome by reason of the fart tha 
even a king's son could not command sufficient 
funds for the purpose. There are in^existence 
four urgent letters written from Warkworth 
Castle by John, all harping upon the monetary 
difficulties of his task. In one, " written m haste 
at Warkworth," he makes the pitiful complamt 
that his scarcity of funds has obliged him 
to actually pawn his silver plate and his 

^Tut' the Percies came back to Warkworth 
again. Not he who was the first earl of the house 
and Hotspur's father. When he fled before the 
forces of Henry IV he had less than two years 
to live. Which was well, for he never knew 
home more. He was hunted hither and thither 
bv the emissaries ot the king and knew no peace 
till death overtook him in the battle at Bramham 
Moor The heir of the Percies, Henry the son 
of Hotspur, a youth of fifteen, was a fugitive 
in Scotland when his grandfather died, and nearly 
a decade was to elapse ere the ^^'Wom and the 
Percy estates were restored to him. With that 
restoration, of course, Warkworth Castle was 



817 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

again numbered among the stately homes of 
the race. 

Its subsequent history need not be followed 
here. Now one and anon another scion of the 
house acquired that affection for its sturdy 
walls and spacious chambers which distin- 
guished the first earl, until the changing condi- 
tions of life and the transformation of social 
customs gradually led to its abandonment as a 
place of residence. Many of the ruined castles 
of England present a two fold problem : when 
they were built, and at what date they ceased 
to be inhabited. Both problems are suggested 
by Warkworth. Its most careful historian 
writes : " With a building of such intense in- 
terest, both in the history of architecture and 
of society, it is vexatious to have to confess that 
there is no direct evidence to prove when or by 
whom it was actually built." On the other 
hand the same authority does not hesitate to 
commit himself to the conclusion : " On general 
grounds it seems impossible that a man of such 
power and such ambition as the first Earl of 
Northumberland should have done nothing to 
render his favourite home more habitable and 
magnificent, nor if the donjon did not then exist 
with all the latest improvements in house-plan- 

318 



WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

ning, can we understand why John of Lancaster 
made Warkworth his headquarters. Although 
documentary evidence be not forthcoming, and 
architectural evidence be little favourable, it is 
impossible not to feel that after all the concep- 
tion if not the completion of this marvellous 
donjon may have been the work of the first and 
the greatest of the eleven earls of the princely 
house of Louvain." 

Thus far Warkworth has suggested only the 
somewhat aloof associations connected with 
noble and royal personages; it has other and 
more congenial claims on the interest of its 
visitor. These are brought to a focus, however, 
not by this " worm-eaten hold of ragged stone," 
as Shakespeare describes the castle, but by the 
unique little hermitage on the banks of the 
Coquet near by. In a grant bearing the date 
of December 3rd, 1531, the sixth Earl of North- 
umberland writes of this remote retreat as 
*' Myn armytage bilded in a rock of stone within 
my parke of Warkworth, in the county of 
Northumberland, in the honour of the blessed 
Trynete." But that is by no means the earliest 
mention of the place; nearly half a century 
before it is specifically referred to in a deed 
which still exists. 

319 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

When it was first '* bilded in a rock " is un- 
known. Much speculation has been expended 
on that matter with Uttle definite result. But 
architectural evidence goes to show that the 
chapel dates back at least to the fourteenth 
century, and the probability is that this pious 
refuge owes its existence to the first Earl of 
Northumberland. 

On the other hand legend credits the hermitage 
with a different origin. One story tells that 
the place was founded by a member of the Ber- 
tram family in expiation of the murder of his 
brother ; another that it was " the retreat of a 
Northumberland warrior who having lost the 
mistress of his heart by some unexpected stroke, 
with her lost all relish for the world, and retired 
to this solitude to spend the remainder of his 
days in devotion for her soul and in erecting this 
little mausoleum to her memory." 

Still more picturesque is that romantic story 
which links the name of Hotspur's son with the 
Warkworth hermitage. Bishop Percy's ballad 
tells how that fugitive returned to England in 
disguise and won the heart of the Lady Alainore 
Nevill, the fair daughter of the Earl of West- 
moreland. Flying together, and while in search 
of some holy man who would join their hands 

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WARK WORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

in wedlock, the dark night overtook the couple 
along the banks of the Coquet. A cry from 
the darkness called forth the hermit and led him 
to where 

" All sad beneath a neighbouring tree 
A beauteous maid he found, 
Who beat her breast, and with her tears 
Bedewed the mossy ground." 










WARKWORTH BRIDGE 



Having taken the wanderer to the shelter of his 
cell, and learnt her story, which told how she 
had become separated from her lover, the 
hermit went out into the night again and quickly 
discovered the missing youth. In response to 
the enquiry of his guests, " Whose lands are 
these ? and to what lord belong ? " the hermit 

321 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

narrates the evil fortunes which have befallen 
the Percies: 

" Not far from hence, where yon full stream 
Runs winding down the lea, 
Fair Warkworth lifts her lofty towers. 
And overlooks the sea. 

" Those towers, alas ! now stand forlorn, 
With noisome weeds o'erspread, 
Where feasted lords and courtly dames. 
And where the poor were fed." 

And so the ballad sings its way, leading to 
the revelation of the identity of the hermit's 
guests, and to their request that he would secure 
the services of some priest to join them in 
matrimony. It may be that imagination mingles 
with truth in this poetic tale, but the visitor 
to the hermitage of Warkworth will agree that 
'* a pleasanter or more inviting spot for young 
love to mate in spite of family feud and royal 
displeasure, one must wander far to find." 

Nor would it be less diflScult to find a retreat 
more typical than the Warkworth hermitage 
of those narrow cells which became so common 
in England when the ideals of the race under- 
went a change in favour of the contemplative 
life. Probably in no district of England was 
the transition so marked as in Northumberland. 

322 



WARKWORTH AND ITS HERMITAGE 

Strength of body and skill in muscular sports 
were characteristic of the sons of that northern 
land, but as they were equally notable for an 
imaginative temperament they were peculiarly 
susceptible to the gospel of asceticism. To 
that changed outlook on life the creation of the 
Warkworth hermitage was probably due, and 
certainly it would be hard to imagine a more 
ideal retreat for one who fell a victim to the 
selfish thought that his chief business was to 
ensure the salvation of his own soul. 

Among the chambers of the hermitage which 
still survive in an excellent state of preservation 
is a remarkable little chapel. The approach 
is by a steep path beneath the shadow of lusty 
beeches, whose thickly interlaced branches seem 
to soften the glare of day into a not unwelcome 
" dim religious light." The apartment is some 
eighteen feet long by seven feet in width and 
height, and at the east end is *' the one altar 
in Northumberland that was not overthrown 
or defaced during the great religious upheaval 
of the sixteenth century." Close by, in an arched 
recess, is a group of figures, including a skin- 
clad man in a kneeling posture, who is absorbed 
in contemplation of a nimbed lady who is re- 
clining rather than recumbent. Is it any wonder 

323 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

that poetic imagination, unrestrained by con- 
trary facts, should have evolved from that silent 
couple the pathetic story of Bishop Percy's 
ballad ? It is pleasanter, at any rate, to allow 
that lovers' story of life-time devotion to fill 
the mind than to obliterate it in favour of the 
darksome spirits of evil which may have tor- 
mented many a hermit in this narrow cell. 

Having his mind so much attuned to the past 
by the hermitage and the castle ruins, the visitor 
to this quiet northern town will be in fit con- 
dition to muse upon the long procession of 
humanity which has passed over Warkworth 
bridge since it first spanned the waters of the 
Coquet. This sturdy structure, by which the 
town is approached from the north, was erected 
during the closing years of the fourteenth cen- 
tury. Although the upper story of the gate- 
house at the south end of the bridge is somewhat 
ruinous, the rest of the work of those long dead 
masons bids fair to resist the assaults of time 
for many generations. 



324 



XX 
A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 



A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

FIVE or six miles from the head of Loch 
Fyne a small bay indents the west side 
of the lake, and on a gently-sloping lawn 
in the centre of that bay stands Inverary Castle, 
the chief seat of the illustrious family of Argyll. 
It is a fitting home for the head of a great High- 
land clan. To the right rises the conical hill 
of Duniquaich, with its sombre watch-tower on 
the summit, recalling those lawless days the 
memory of which contributes not a little to 
the romance of the Scottish Highlands. On 
the left, nestling almost under the shadow of the 
castle, lies the royal town of Inverary, the 
latter-day reminder of a time when the followers 
of a great noble were safest within bow-shot 
of his fortress. The background is shut in by 
tree-clad hills, which sweep down to the right 
and left on either side of the river Aray. 

Bannockburn laid the foundations of the 
fortune of the Argyll family. Although the bards 
of this noble house claim for it an antiquity 

327 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

reaching back to the shadowy times of the fifth 
century, the earhest authentic charter connected 
with the family belongs to the year 1315. Among 
the adventurous Scots who sided with Robert 
the Bruce in his struggles for the Scottish crown 
was one Sir Neil Campbell, of Lochaw (the 
modern Loch Awe), and so lively a sense did 
the king entertain of the services thus rendered, 
culminating at Bannockburn, that he rewarded 
his follower with the hand of his own sister, 
the Lady Mary Bruce. It was to Sir Colin 
Campbell, eldest son of this union, that the 
charter mentioned above was granted, and it 
secured to the king's nephew the barony of 
Lochaw on condition that he provided, at his 
own charges and whenever required, a ship of 
forty oars for the royal service. 

It does not appear when the Argyll family 
took up their residence at Inverary ; all that is 
certain is that it was long prior to 1474, for in 
that year King James III, " for the singular 
favour he bore to his trusty and well beloved 
cousin, Colin, Earl of Argyll," created the 
** Earl's village of Inverary *' a free burgh or 
barony. 

Turner's etching of Inverary Castle is most 
remarkable for its intolerable deal of landscape 

328 



A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

to one half-penny worth of castle, and yet it 
is a characteristic transcript of the district, for 
no matter from what distant standpoint the 
upper reaches of Loch Fyne are viewed, the 
pointed turrets of the Duke of Argyll's home 
cannot fail to arrest the eye. But it is from the 
public grounds of the castle that the most 
picturesque views of the building can be obtained. 
Whether seen through glades of trees with the 
sunshine transforming its sombre stone into 
deceptive brightness, or blocking the end of 
one of the many avenues which stretch away 
into the park, or with a background of threaten- 
ing thunder-clouds massed up Glen Aray, the 
castle asserts itself as the central point in these 
wide domains. If an uninterrupted view of the 
building is desired, it may be had either from 
the bridge over the Aray on the road to Dalmally, 
or from the private gardens of the castle. It is 
quadrangular in shape, with four round towers ; 
comprises a sunk basement, two main floors, and 
an attic story; and is dominated in the centre 
by a square tower which rises some feet above 
the main building. When Dr. Johnson visited 
the castle in 1773, he told Boswell that the 
building was too low, and expressed a wish that 
it had been a story higher, — a criticism which 

329 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

has been met to a certain extent, for the dormer- 
window story is a later addition. It is to the 
third Duke of Argyll that the present structure 
is mainly due. Lord Archibald Campbell states 
that when this ancestor of his had planned a new 
abode, he, in 1745, ordered the old castle to be 
blown up, as no longer fit for habitation. A still 
earlier predecessor, according to a Highland 
legend, met a yet more singular fate. The 
lord of the castle in a far-off age, who was 
distinguished for his magnificent hospitality, 
when visited by some nobles from Ireland was 
specially anxious to entertain them in his superb 
field-equipage, which he was accustomed to use 
on a campaign. That he might have a reasonable 
excuse for this departure from usual hospitality, 
he caused his castle to be destroyed just before 
his guests arrived. The present building dates 
from 1744-61 ; but there was an interruption in 
the work for a considerable period during the 
unsettled times of 1745. The third Duke of 
Argyll is also credited with planning the grounds 
around the castle. 

Appropriate in its outward setting as the chief 
home of MacCailean Mor — the Gaelic name, 
meaning " Great Colin's son," by which the 
head of the Argyll clan is known in the High- 

330 



A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

lands — Inverary Castle also betrays by its 
interior that it is the abode of a Highland noble. 

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THE ARMORY, INVERARY CASTLE 

The vestibule leads directly into the central 
tower. This handsome apartment, known as the 

331 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

armory, extends upward to the full height of 
the building and is flooded with light from 
gothic windows at the top. Mingling with 
innumerable family portraits and other works 
of art are arms and armour of infinite variety 
and absorbing historical interest. Here are 
old flint-lock muskets which dealt many a death 
wound at Culloden, claymores which have known 
the red stain of blood, battle-axes which have 
crashed through targe and helmet, and halberds 
which have survived from fierce war to grace 
the peaceful ceremonials of modern times. 
From either side of the armory a spacious 
staircase leads to the second floor, and on one of 
the landings hangs a full length portrait of 
Princess Louise, the present Duchess of Argyll, 
flanked by a charming cabinet which is sur- 
mounted by an exquisite harp. The house of 
Argyll, it is said, has ever been famed for its 
harpers. 

To the left of the main entrance is the apart- 
ment in which Dr. Johnson and Boswell were 
entertained, now used principally as a business 
and reception room. The three chief apartments 
of the castle extend the whole length of one side 
of the building, their windows commanding 
unrivalled views of mountain and glen. One 

332 



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THE SALOON, INVERARY. 




THE DUCHESS BOUDOIR, INVERARY. 



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A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

corner is taken up with the private drawing- 
room of the duke and duchess. It is a dainty 
apartment, furnished in faultless taste, and hung 
with costly Flemish tapestry. This is not the 
only room so draped. More Flemish tapestry 
may be seen in the state bedroom, and this 
originally hung in the old castle. Again, the 
large dining-room is decorated with tapestry 
of the Flemish school, the colours being as vivid 
as when the cloth left the loom. Next to the 
private drawing-room, and opening off it, is the 
saloon, a spacious apartment richly decorated 
and containing many noble family portraits. 
The third room is the library ; and here, at the 
small table on the left, it was the habit of the late 
duke to read prayers to his household. 

Generously as the nobles of England have 
exerted themselves to do honour to and bestow 
hospitality upon such of America's sons and 
daughters who have visited the *' Old Home," 
few of their number exceeded the late Duke of 
Argyll in the warmth of their friendship and the 
sincerity of their regard for their distinguished 
guests. The duke was a genuine lover of 
America and Americans. Although possessing 
a temperament which caused a fellow peer to 
describe him as having a " cross-bench mind," 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

meaning that it was impossible to forecast which 
side he would take in a political crisis, he never 
assumed an attitude of hesitancy towards Amer- 
ica and her children. " I think," he declared 
as the chief speaker at the memorable break- 

, fast in London to Lloyd Garrison, " I think 
that we ought to feel, every one of us, that 
in going to America we are only going to a 
second home." And in perfect keeping with that 
sentiment was his confession to a correspondent : 
" It is the only disadvantage I know, attaching to 
warm and intimate friendships with cultivated 

f Americans, that in a great majority of cases they 
are severed by distance before they can be lost 
by death. But I have enjoyed too many of 
these friendships not to be grateful for their 
memory." 

Throughout the Civil War the duke never 
faltered in supporting the side of the North. 
Hence the urgent appeals made that he would 
visit America. Henry Ward Beecher promised 
that he would ** see tliat a Republican welcome 
can be more royal than any that is ever given to 
royalty ; " and Whittier wrote : *' Hast thou never 
thought of making a visit to the U. S. A. ? Our 
people would welcome thee as their friend in the 
great struggle for Union and liberty, and in our 

334 



A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

literary and philosophical circles thou wouldst 
find appreciative and admiring friends." 

From the year when he succeeded to the 
title the Duke of Argyll was ever on the alert to 
offer the hospitality of Inverary Castle to 
Americans, among the most notable of those 
received here as honoured guests being Prescott, 
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lowell. Himself 
a man of letters of varied attainments, it can be 
easily imagined how keenly the author of 
*' The Reign of Law " would enjoy having 
Lowell for his guest; and that Lowell did not 
fail of experiencing equal pleasure must be 
obvious from the conclusion of the graceful lines 
in which he recorded his ** Planting a Tree at 
Inverary : " 

Who does his duty is a question 

Too complex to be solved by me, 
But he, I venture the suggestion. 

Does part of his that plants a tree. 

For after he is dead and buried. 

And epitaphed, and well forgot. 
Nay, even his shade by Charon ferried 

To — let us not inquire to what. 

His deed, its author long outliving. 

By Nature's mother-care increased. 
Shall stand, his verdant almoner, giving 

A kindly dole to man and beast. 

335 



90 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

The wayfarer, at noon reposing. 

Shall bless its shadow on the grass. 
Or sheep beneath it huddle, dozing 

Until the thundergust o'erpass. 

The owl, belated in his plundering. 

Shall here await the friendly night. 
Blinking whene'er he wakes, and wondering 

What fool it was invented light. 

Hither the busy birds shall flutter, 
With the light timber for their nests, 

And, pausing from their labor, utter 
The morning sunshine in their breasts. 

What though his memory shall have vanished. 
Since the good deed he did survives ? 

It is not wholly to be banished 
Thus to be part of many lives. 

Grow, then, my foster-child, and strengthen. 
Bough over bough, a murmurous pile. 

And, as your stately stem shall lengthen, 
So may the statelier of Argyll ! 

Tree-planting seems to have been the tax 
usually imposed on every notable visitor to 
Inverary. Harriet Beecher Stowe paid her 
tribute to the castle grounds, and so did Queen 
Victoria, and many other less exalted guests. 
A love for trees seems to have been a common 
trait of the Argyll family. More than a century 

336 



A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

and a quarter ago, when Boswell piloted Dr. 
Johnson through these well-wooded grounds, he, 
still smarting from the aspersions his companion 
had cast on the treeless character of Scotland, 
took a " particular pride " in pointing out the 
lusty timber of the demesne. 

Thanks, perhaps, to that unwearied industry 
in note-taking to which James Boswell owes 
his fame, the visitor to Inverary Castle will 
probably find his imagination more greatly 
filled with the figures of Dr. Johnson and his 
biographer than with those of royal and other 
guests of the house. It was on a Sunday after- 
noon in the autumn of 1773 that Boswell called 
at the castle to ascertain whether its ducal 
owner would like to extend his hospitality to 
the great lexicographer, whom he had left at 
the inn in the village. The lord of Inverary 
at this time was John, the fifth Duke of Argyll, 
who was satirized by the fribbles of his day 
because, instead of wasting his guineas on the 
gambler's-table, he devoted his wealth and his 
thought to the improvement of his estate and 
the welfare of his tenants. And the lady who 
bore the honoured name of the Duchess of Argyll 
at this period was none other than the beautiful 
Elizabeth Gunning. 

337 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

Unhappily, no matter how gladly the duchess 
agreed with her husband in his desire to honour 
Dr. Johnson, she had adequate reasons for not 
entertaining the same feelings towards Boswell. 
He had figured aggressively in a law-suit in which 
the duchess had been keenly interested, and that 
on the side adverse to her. Still, the traditions 
of Highland hospitality had to be observed, and 
the duchess, while assenting to an invitation to 
dinner for the following day being extended 
to Dr. Johnson and his companion, evidently 
anticipated that an opportunity would present 
itself for effectually snubbing Boswell. At the 
dinner-table the irrepressible Boswell made 
several attempts to placate the antagonism 
of his hostess. He offered to help her from a 
dish beside him, and, when that service was 
coldly declined, lifted his glass to her with the 
toast, *' My Lady Duchess, I have the honour 
to drink your Grace's good health ! " 

Afterwards, in the drawing-room, says a recent 
biographer of Elizabeth Gunning, the beautiful 
duchess, who still continued to ignore Mr. 
Boswell, called Dr. Johnson to drink his tea 
by her side, when, perhaps with the intuition of 
genius, there came to him a revelation which 
never failed to capture his great warm heart, 

338 



A fflGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

and he perceived that this radiant lady was a 
good mother. For he knew that she had fought 
a brave fight for her Httle son ; he could see that 
her wounds were still fresh and bleeding. She 
had asked him why he made his journey so late 
in the year. " Why, madame," he replied, ** you 
know Mr. Boswell must attend the Court of 
Session, and it does not rise till the twelfth of 
August." In a moment the fair brow was 
clouded, and her voice grew stern. " I know 
nothing of Mr. Boswell," she answered sharply. 
Imperturbable, even after cooler reflection, 
Boswell himself gave to the world the history 
of his visit to Inverary Castle, and the episode 
was seized upon by the pen of Peter Pindar for 
the following lampoon : 

As at Argyll's grand house my hat I took. 

To seek my alehouse, thus began the Duke : 

' Pray, Mister Boswell, won't you have some tea ? * 

To this I made my bow, and did agree — 

Then to the drawing-room we both retreated. 

Where Lady Betty Hamilton was seated 

Close by the Duchess, who, in deep discourse, 

Took no more notice of me than a horse. 

Next day, myself, and Dr. Johnson took 

Our hats to go and wait upon the Duke. 

Next to himself the Duke did Johnson place; 

But I, thank God, sat second to his Grace. 

The place was due most surely to my merits — 

339 



UNTRODDEN ENGLISH WAYS 

And faith, I was in very pretty spirits; 

I plainly saw (my penetration such is) 

I was not yet in favour with the Duchess. 

Thought I, I am not disconcerted yet; 

Before we part, I'll give her Grace a sweat — 

Then looks of intrepidity I put on. 

And ask'd her, if she'd have a plate of mutton. 

This was a glorious deed, must be confess'd ! 

I knew I was the Duke's and not her guest. 

Knowing — as I'm a man of tip-top breeding. 

That great folks drink no healths whilst they are feeding, 

I took my glass, and looking at her Grace, 

I stared her like a devil in her face; 

And in respectful terms, as was my duty. 

Said I, ' My Lady Duchess, I salute ye : * 

Most audible indeed was my salute, 

For which some folks will say I was a brute; 

But, faith, it dashed her, as I knew it would; 

But then I knew that I was flesh and blood. 

A ramble through the grounds of Inverary 
Castle reveals them to be both spacious and 
well-kept, and they are nearly always generously 
open to the public. One of the principal roads 
leads towards Dalmally, and it passes over a 
bridge — Frew's Bridge — to which a legend 
with a dash of humour is attached. At his 
first attempt the builder of this bridge failed, 
and his structure collapsed — whereupon he 
ran away; but the duke of that time fetched 
him back and made him do his work over again 

340 



3(>?<][>?<]l>?<)t>?<GC>?<)t>?<ai>?<G !>?<)(>?<) t>?<][>?<)C>?<)t>?^ 




FREW S BKIDGK, INVERARY. 







INVERARY CASTLE. 



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A HIGHLAND NOBLE'S HOME 

— with happier results, as the present soundness 
of the structure bears witness. Close by, and 
within a few yards of the Aray, is the silver 
fir planted by Queen Victoria in 1875. There 
are many magnificent avenues in the park, 
notably one of limes which leads to Eas-a- 
chosain Glen — that glen of which Archibald, 
the ninth earl, declared that if heaven were half 
as beautiful he would be satisfied. 



341 



OTHER BOOKS BY HENRY C. SHELLEY 



Liiterary By- Paths in Old England 

Contents: T. In Spenser's Footsteps; II. The Home of Sir Philip 
Sidney; III. Memorials of William Pknn; IV. The Birth- 
place OF Gray's Elegy ; V. Gilbert White's Selborne ; 
VI. Goldsmith's " Deserted Village " ; VII. Burns in Ayr- 
shire; VIII. Keats and His Circle; IX. In Carlyle's 
Country; X. Thomas Hood and His Friends; XI. Royal 
Winchester. 

A thoroughly readable book. His style is pleasing and impersonal. 
— The Nation, New York. 

One of the best books of its class seen in recent years. Written 
with sympathy and understanding. — Literary Digest, New York. 

Mr. Shelley's book is really charming. . . . Mr. Shelley is in many 
respects quite the ideal guide, unassuming, sympathetic, and exceed- 
ingly well informed. He refreshes vague memories and supplies fresh 
clues at almost every turn, and his is exactly the book one would like to 
take along on a pilgrimage to poetic shrines. — Atlantic Monthly. 

With 24 fuU-page plates and 100 smaller illustrations from photographs 
8vo. Cloth, in box, $3.00 net 

John Harvard and His Times 

Contents: I. Environment; II. Parentage; III. Early In- 
fluences; IV, The Harvard Circle; V. Cambridge; VI. 
Last Years in England; VII. The New^ World; VIII. The 
Praise of John Harvard. 

A book of surpassing interest, educationally, historically, and 
scholastically. — Journal of Education, Boston. 

Our most vivid and plausible picture of the earliest benefactor of 
education in this country. — North American Revieio. 

An interesting and excellent volume. It is indeed remarkable that 
it has been possible to produce such a book about a man of whom 
twenty-five years ago almost nothing was known. We cordially admit 
Mr. Shelley's scholarship, judgment, and good taste. — The Nation. 

So far as facts go, he has omitted nothing. More remarkable than 
his industry, however, is his excellent historic sense. He puts himself 
into the spirit of the first quarter of the seventeenth century in England. 
He visualizes its life in various planes. The result is that he has 
produced a vivid picture of John Harvard's environment. — Harvard 
Graduates Magazine. 

With S4 full-page illustrations from photographs 
Crown 8vo. Cloth, in box, $2.00 net 



LITTLE, BROWN, h CO., Publishers, Boston 



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